This species is common along ponds and watercourses here in southeast Pennsylvania. It has a large native range in North America of southern Canada and almost all of the lower 48 states, except for Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Like other members of the Aster Family, Asteraceae, (or the old Composite Family of Compositae), it has central fertile disc flowers that make up the 'nose" and ray flowers that look like petals. With this species there is a range of variety and ecotypes where the ray flowers can be totally absent to various lengths of short ray flowers to ray flowers about 1.5 to 2 inches long. There is an extremely similar species of the Smooth Beggar-Tick (Bidens laevis) that always has ray flowers that are about 2 inches long or longer. My old book of "A Field Guide To Wildflowers by Peterson & McKenny from 1968 comments that the two species intergrade into each other. I would say it is one species with three varieties of no ray flowers, short ray flowers, and longer ray flowers. The seed of this plant do cling to fur, feathers, and clothing if brushed against. Some native plant nurseries of conservation districts and other habitat enhancement companies sell the seeds and sometimes even small plants.

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