Packera obovata

Packera obovata (Muhl. ex Willd.) W.A.Weber & A.Löve (Asteraceae), formerly Senecio obovatus, is a stoloniferous perennial herb of eastern North American rocky woods, bluffs, and calcareous slopes, ranging from southern Ontario and New England to Florida and Texas. Plants grow 20–60 cm tall, producing flowering stems from a rosette of distinctively obovate to spatulate basal leaves 3–10 cm long, with rounded apices, cuneately tapering bases, and shallowly crenate to dentate margins; the lower surfaces are pale and often glaucous. Cauline leaves are few, sharply pinnatifid, and progressively reduced upward. The inflorescence is a flat-topped to rounded cyme of 6–20 yellow heads, each 1.5–2.5 cm wide with 8–10 ray florets surrounding a yellow disc. Achenes are short, ridged, and crowned by a pappus of soft white capillary bristles. Flowering occurs in spring. Like other Packera, it contains hepatotoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids.