Oxeye Daisy

A perennial herb native to Europe and temperate parts of Asia including Turkey and Georgia, now naturalized in North America, Australia and New Zealand and classed as invasive in more than forty countries. It grows to about 80 centimeters from a creeping underground rhizome, with hairy lower stems and basal leaves four to fifteen centimeters long, and bears up to three daisy-like flower heads two to 7.5 centimeters wide, each with fifteen to forty white ray florets around a yellow disc, blooming from May to October. It grows in meadows, fields, scrubland and open forest, favoring temperate areas with over 750 millimeters of annual rainfall and heavy, damp soil, and often colonizes degraded pasture and roadsides.