William Weber believes that  "Senecio is [such] an enormous, very unnatural genus....  [that] all of our Senecio species except the annual Senecio vulgaris... seem destined to be segregated into other genera."  Weber has moved a number of former Senecio members into the Packera and Ligularia general and a number of prominent botanists now accept these splits.

    Senecios are variable in growth characteristics and can be difficult to identify.  All Senecios pictured on this web site are very common in the San Juans or nearby Canyon Country.

    "Senecio" is from the Latin, "senes", "old man", and refers to the pappus hairs, the white, tiny, hair-like growth at the apex of the seeds in Asteraceae.

Semi-desert, foothills. Sandy, gravelly openings, shrublands.  Summer, fall.
Squaw Creek Trail, Canyonlands National Park, Utah, September 10, 2005.

Senecio spartioides grows in an open, many stemmed, airy manner with numerous bright gold/yellow flowers in flat-topped clusters.  Leaves are narrow, to four inches long, and lower leaves are often withered by flowering time --  giving the plant a very strange appearance: dead on the bottom and vibrant on top.  In Canyon Country, Senecio spartioides often grows in open, sandy areas where plants are well-spaced and its two-to-three foot height and bright flowers really stand out.

"Oides" is a form of the Greek "oid", which means "similar to" and thus "spartioides" means "similar to spart(ium)", a genus of Fabaceae (Pea Family).

Senecio spartioides was first collected by John C. Fremont along the Sweetwater River in Wyoming, in 1842 and was named and described by Torrey and Gray in their Flora of North America in 1843.

Semi-desert, foothills. Sandy, gravelly openings, shrublands.  Summer, fall.
Squaw Creek Trail, Canyonlands National Park, Utah, September 10, 2005.
De-Na-Zin/Bisti Wilderness, October 8, 2007.

The top photograph shows Senecio spartioides; the bottom two show Senecio spartioides variety multicapitatus.  Flowers are very similar but notice that the leaves in the top photograph are entire; those in the bottom photograph have slender lateral segments.  Both plants are found in all Four Corners states.

Semi-desert, foothills. Sandy, gravelly openings, shrublands.  Summer, fall.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, November 8, 2007.

Senecio spartioides' silvery white pappus hairs that carry tiny, brown seeds aloft attract as much attention as the golden yellow flowers.  The hairs are common on many members of the Sunflower Family, most famously on Dandelions, Taraxacum officinale.