Canadian Fleabane - Erigeron canadensis

Short to tall hairy plant to 1.5 metres, leaves alternate, narrow, oblong, and the lower often deciduous before flowering. Flowers 2 to 5 mm with white ray florets scarcely longer than the yellow disk florets, borne in branched clusters. The phyllaries are more or less hairless in this species unlike the similar Guernsey Fleabane which has hairy phyllaries.

There are 3 very similar Conyza (syn - Erigeron): Guernsey, Bilbao's and Argentine Fleabanes.  Separating them can be tricky; reference should be made to the key in Stace (4th edition)

Phyllaries yellowish-green; more or less glabrous and with a 4-(5)-lobed corolla. Inflorescence is cylindrical. Outer flowers have ligules overtopping phyllaries.  Hairs on proximal part of leaf-margin (closest to leaf-stalk) are more or less straight; curved on rest of margin.

The very similar Bilbao's fleabane (C floribunda) has 5-lobed corollae, and ligules of outer flowers scarcely overtopping phyllaries; the inflorescence is narrow but widens above.  It has been recorded in VC55.

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Cultivated and waste places, walls. Often in built up areas.

July to September.

Annual.

Only common in England, scarcer elsewhere in Britain.

Fairly common and probably increasing in built up areas of Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 36 of the 617 tetrads.