| Author | (L.) Mackenzie | |
| Distribution | Mountains and Piedmont, and by 2020 present in most of the Coastal Plain. Not in the Sandhills region. Originally, in the Coastal Plain it was mainly limited to brownwater floodplains.
NY to southern MI, MO, and southeastern KS, south to central FL and central TX. | |
| Abundance | Generally common in the Mountains; fairly common to common in the Piedmont, where seemingly spreading and increasing. Uncommon in the Coastal Plain where there are brownwater rivers, but rare to absent in many areas; spreading in range in that province also. A very large population (hundreds) occurs at the margin of the Deep River bridge in High Falls, Moore Co. For some odd reason, the NCNHP still has not given a State Rank to this well-known species! Maybe the program did when the species was named as Polymnia uvedalia, but if so, the Biotics database lacks that name, and we still see the SNR (not [yet] ranked) for the State Rank. It clearly is an S5 species now, and thus the Global Rank should also be G5 and not G4G5. | |
| Habitat | Mesic to rich hardwood forests, moist rocky slope forests, ravines, cove hardwoods, brownwater bottomlands, and upper terraces of brownwater floodplains. Favors rich soils, though not necessarily on circumneutral soil. As with most Asteraceae species, it grows most frequently along the margins of such forests, in partial shade/sun. |
| Phenology | Flowering and fruiting July-September. | |
| Identification | Hairy Leafcup is a broadly-branched, shrublike herb that grows 3-7 (-9) feet tall, with opposite, wing-stalked leaves about a foot long and mostly 3-lobed (rather like huge maple leaves). The inflorescence holds 1-5 large heads from short branches, with 7-13 yellow rays per head. Vegetatively it is similar to White-flowered Leafcup, but that species has white rays (that are short or often lacking) and its leaves are pinnately divided into 5 lobes. The number of counties with sight records and iNaturalist photo records is an indication of a spread in populations into "new" counties, it obviously being more widespread across the state now than 50-60 years ago. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | In older texts treated as Polymnia uvedalia.
| |
| Other Common Name(s) | Bearsfoot, Yellow-flowered Leafcup | |
| State Rank | [S5] | |
| Global Rank | G4G5 [G5] | |
| State Status | | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | | |
| USACE-emp | | |
