American Feverfew

Media
Photo of American feverfew flower cluster.
Scientific Name
Parthenium integrifolium
Family
Asteraceae (daisies)
Description

American feverfew, or wild quinine, is a perennial herb with stems single, usually unbranched below the flower cluster. It sometimes grows in colonies. The flowerheads are in flat-topped or slightly rounded, fuzzy white clusters about ¼ inch wide. The ray florets are few, tiny, and inconspicuous. Blooms May–September. The basal and lower stem leaves are aromatic, to 8 inches long and 4 inches wide, tapering into long petioles (leaf stems), elliptical to broadly ovate, roughened with short, stiff hairs, with a coarsely toothed or scalloped margin. Leaves and stems have tiny spherical yellow glands.

Similar species: Two varieties of this species are sometimes considered as separate species: Variety hispidum (sometimes called P. hispidum) is usually colonial, with several stems arising from a branching rhizome; the stems moderately to densely hairy with short, stiff, spreading hair, and the leaves with rather dense, spreading hairs along the undersurface midvein. Variety integrifolium is usually not colonial, with the rootstock somewhat thickened and tuberous, occasionally with a short rhizome; the stems are hairless or if hairy, then with short, soft, loosely ascending hairs; hairs on midveins on undersides of leaves more or less appressed.

Other Common Names
Wild Quinine
Size

Height: to 3 feet.

Where To Find
image of Amerian Feverfew Wild Quinine Distribution Map

Scattered nearly statewide, but uncommon or absent from the northwestern quarter.

American feverfew occurs in glades, upland prairies, rocky open woods, forest openings, ledges and tops of bluffs, savannas, pastures, and roadsides. This native plant is a characteristic species of high-quality upland prairie plant communities.

The names feverfew and wild quinine indicate that the plant was used medicinally. Some Native American tribes made a poultice of the leaves to use for treating burns. Apparently the plant was also used as a diuretic. Today people plant it as part of a prairie restoration or native wildflower garden.

Insects visit the flowers for pollen and nectar. This plant is rarely eaten by mammals because of its coarse texture and bitter-tasting chemicals in the leaves.

Title
Media Gallery
Title
Similar Species
About Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants in Missouri
A very simple way of thinking about the green world is to divide the vascular plants into two groups: woody and nonwoody (or herbaceous). But this is an artificial division; many plant families include some species that are woody and some that are not. The diversity of nonwoody vascular plants is staggering! Think of all the ferns, grasses, sedges, lilies, peas, sunflowers, nightshades, milkweeds, mustards, mints, and mallows — weeds and wildflowers — and many more!