Bidens connataMuhl. ex Willd.

purplestem beggarticks

WFO wfo-0000013151 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Bidens connata, photographed by Zakqary Roy
fig. a Zakqary Roy, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-10 / obs. 204956829
Bidens connata, photographed by Andrew Sebastian
fig. b Andrew Sebastian, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 155056524
Bidens connata, photographed by Andrew Sebastian
fig. c Andrew Sebastian, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 155056419
Bidens connata, photographed by Andrew Sebastian
fig. d Andrew Sebastian, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 155056286
Bidens connata, photographed by Ryan Sorrells
fig. e Ryan Sorrells, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 150150773
Bidens connata, photographed by Griffin Bray
fig. f Griffin Bray, CC0 1.0 / obs. 102493882
Bidens connata, photographed by Tom Field
fig. g Tom Field, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 97557092
Bidens connata, photographed by Nick Kleinschmidt
fig. h Nick Kleinschmidt, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 109097300

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 36 botanical countries

Regions where Bidens connata is native: Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Newfoundland, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nova Scotia, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Prince Edward I., Québec, Rhode I., South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin ConnecticutGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMissouriMontanaNebraskaNew BrunswickNew HampshireNew JerseyNew YorkNewfoundlandNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaNova ScotiaOhioOntarioPennsylvaniaPrince Edward I.QuébecSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeVirginiaWest VirginiaWisconsin DelawareRhode I.
Native distribution of Bidens connata, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Connecticut CNT NORTHERN AMERICA
Delaware DEL
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Iowa IOW
Kansas KAN
Kentucky KTY
Maine MAI
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
Missouri MSO
Montana MNT
Nebraska NEB
New Brunswick NBR
New Hampshire NWH
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
Newfoundland NFL
North Carolina NCA
North Dakota NDA
Nova Scotia NSC
Ohio OHI
Ontario ONT
Pennsylvania PEN
Prince Edward I. PEI
Québec QUE
Rhode I. RHO
South Carolina SCA
South Dakota SDA
Tennessee TEN
Virginia VRG
West Virginia WVA
Wisconsin WIS

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 105 in flower of 143 examined

Peak flowering in Sep. Each bar is the share of Bidens connata observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 105 of 143 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 9 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,206 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -14.8 °C -7.5 °C -1.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 21.9 °C 26.2 °C 31.0 °C
Annual rainfall 653 mm 1,048 mm 1,381 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 74 mm 206 mm 301 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,206 research-grade observations of Bidens connata that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 18 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Bidens connata f. ambiversa E.G.Voss
  • Bidens connata f. anomala E.G.Voss
  • Bidens connata f. connata
  • Bidens connata var. ambiversa Fassett
  • Bidens connata var. anomala Farw.
  • Bidens connata var. connata
  • Bidens connata var. fallax Sherff
  • Bidens connata var. fultior Fernald & H.St.John
  • Bidens connata var. gracilipes Fernald
  • Bidens connata var. inundata Fernald
  • Bidens connata var. petiolata Farw.
  • Bidens connata var. pinnata S.Watson
  • Bidens connata var. saint-vincentii Sherff
  • Bidens connata var. submutica Fassett
  • Bidens decipiens Warnst.
  • Bidens petiolata Nutt.
  • Bidens sandbergii Rydb.
  • Bidens tripartita var. fallax Warnst.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.