Bidens vulgataGreene

big devils beggartick

WFO wfo-0000128988 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Bidens vulgata, photographed by Marilynn Miller
fig. a Marilynn Miller, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-08 / obs. 156094150
Bidens vulgata, photographed by Loopy30
fig. b Loopy30, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 152986110
Bidens vulgata, photographed by Reuven Martin
fig. c Reuven Martin, CC0 1.0 / obs. 99713198
Bidens vulgata, photographed by Quinten Wiegersma
fig. d Quinten Wiegersma, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 94723261
Bidens vulgata, photographed by Nathan Rauh
fig. e Nathan Rauh, CC0 1.0 / obs. 53404138
Bidens vulgata, photographed by Zihao Wang
fig. f Zihao Wang, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 23432994
Bidens vulgata, photographed by aarongunnar
fig. g aarongunnar, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 10555015
Bidens vulgata, photographed by aarongunnar
fig. h aarongunnar, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 9897658

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 50 botanical countries

Regions where Bidens vulgata is native: Alberta, Arkansas, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Manitoba, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nova Scotia, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ontario, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Québec, Rhode I., Saskatchewan, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming AlbertaArkansasBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutGeorgiaIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyMaineManitobaMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew BrunswickNew HampshireNew JerseyNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaNova ScotiaOhioOklahomaOntarioOregonPennsylvaniaQuébecSaskatchewanSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming DelawareDistrict of ColumbiaRhode I.
Native distribution of Bidens vulgata, 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
Alberta ABT NORTHERN AMERICA
Arkansas ARK
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Connecticut CNT
Delaware DEL
District of Columbia WDC
Georgia GEO
Idaho IDA
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Iowa IOW
Kansas KAN
Kentucky KTY
Maine MAI
Manitoba MAN
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
Mississippi MSI
Missouri MSO
Montana MNT
Nebraska NEB
Nevada NEV
New Brunswick NBR
New Hampshire NWH
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
North Carolina NCA
North Dakota NDA
Nova Scotia NSC
Ohio OHI
Oklahoma OKL
Ontario ONT
Oregon ORE
Pennsylvania PEN
Québec QUE
Rhode I. RHO
Saskatchewan SAS
South Carolina SCA
South Dakota SDA
Tennessee TEN
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
Washington WAS
West Virginia WVA
Wisconsin WIS
Wyoming WYO

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 65 in flower of 83 examined

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Bidens vulgata 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. 65 of 83 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 10 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 745 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -18.6 °C -10.6 °C -1.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.9 °C 26.8 °C 30.0 °C
Annual rainfall 563 mm 993 mm 1,279 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 56 mm 178 mm 268 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 745 research-grade observations of Bidens vulgata 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 9 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 frondosa var. puberula Wiegand
  • Bidens puberula (Wiegand) Rydb.
  • Bidens puberula Wiegand
  • Bidens vulgata f. puberula (Wiegand) Fernald
  • Bidens vulgata f. vulgata
  • Bidens vulgata var. dissectior Sherff
  • Bidens vulgata var. puberula Greene
  • Bidens vulgata var. schizantha Lunell
  • Bidens vulgata var. vulgata

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.