The original mystery plant

Each week The Columbia Star features an explanation and picture of a

mystery plant given by Dr. John Nelson, the curator of the USC Herbarium. To learn more about the Herbarium, call him at 777-8196. His department also offers free plant identification. www.herbarium.org

Dr. John Nelson

Here’s an aquatic plant that is just finishing up now and provides a stunning wetland farewell to our recent Indian summer.

Woody goldenrod, Chrysoma pauciflosculosa The photo is from one of the backwaters of the Sparkleberry Swamp, which is located at the north end of Lake Marion in Sumter County, not far from Pinewood. The area is open to the public, and there is a boat ramp and parking area.

I was part of a small flotilla of 11 kayaks and canoes on a field trip offered by the Friends of the Congaree Swamp (for information, visit www.friendsofcongaree.org). Our guide was John Cely, a veteran of this swamp. If he hadn’t been around, most of us would probably still be there, lost!

It didn’t take long for us to see a wide variety of characteristic and conspicuous vegetation. Gorgeous scenery abounds, with a canopy of tupelo, ash, and majestic bald cypress.

Our mystery plant is very abundant there, commonly forming massive floating mats or sometimes crowded on stump tops or logs.

Being yet another member of the sunflower member, its flowers are tiny and clustered into heads. The outer, strap–shaped ray flowers are particularly impressive. They are bright golden–yellow, with eight to ten of them forming a ring around the central disk. The one–seeded fruits are produced as the flowers age and dry up. Each fruit is much like a tiny, slender sunflower seed and is topped by a pair of slender, stiff bristles (every now and then there will be four) that stick straight up, and they remind me of the arms of a football referee signaling a touchdown.

Each bristle has a series of tiny barbs, pointing down, running along its length. This is a great system for having fruits (and thus seeds) hook onto passers–by, whether wildlife or human, and get carried somewhere else.

Answer to last week’s mystery plant