DAISY FLEABANE--Erigeron strigosus
Description:  Daisy fleabane is a shallowly fibrous-rooted annual or biennial forb, typically 8 to 30 inches tall, with 1 to several stems.  Stems branch freely well above the ground.  The number of flower heads per plant ranges from few to as many as 100.  Rather small daisy-like heads, about 1/2 inch across, appear as early as late May with yellow centers and white outer rays numbering 50 to 100.  Leaf blades, up to 6 inches long, are lanceolate to oblanceolate, tapering to the petioled base.  Foliage is pubescent with ascending to spreading hairs.
Distribution, habitat:  Daisy fleabane is a weedy native found throughout the drier temperate regions of the United States and southern Canada.  In the northern Great Plains, including South Dakota, it is common on rangelands, roadsides, and disturbed sites.
Comments:  Western fleabane, E. bellidiastrum, a native annual, is confined to sandy soils of southwestern South Dakota and western Nebraska and westward into Wyoming and beyond.  It is shorter, 4 to 20 inches tall, often intricately branched, with numerous, narrow leaves which are fine and hairy, and with distinctive curved hairs on the involucre.  White to pinkish rays number 30 to 70.
Several other fleabanes are present in South Dakota grasslands and are often confused with asters.  In general, fleabanes are earlier flowering, and most have more numerous and narrower rays.  The forage value of daisy fleabane and western fleabane is limited.  Daisy fleabane may temporarily become abundant in disturbed areas.  Plains Indians used several species from this genus to treat ailments.	Picture and information can be found on pages 116 and 117 of Grassland Plants of South Dakota and the Northern Great Plains, by James R. Johnson and Gary E. Larson.  Published in 1999 by South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD.