Fleabane

These little daisies are blooming along Drexel Drive this week. They look a lot like asters, but they are from a closely related group of plants called fleabanes. This one is probably annual fleabane, Erigeron annuus, or daisy fleabane, Erigeron strigosus. Daisy fleabane has narrower leaves than annual fleabane, and the leaves of annual fleabane wrap around the stem, which is hairier. However, I did not know this when I took the picture, so did not do a close inspection of the lower leaves.

Other than being pretty little daisies, they seem to have not particular use. At one time people thought that the dried plants repelled fleas, which is why they have the name, but if any of the fleabanes did, daisy and annual fleabane do not. As the photo shows, the flowers attract lots of little insects.