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Other Names: common yarrowScientific Name: Achillea millefolium L.
Plant Family: Compositae
Botanical Description: Herbaceous plant with a somewhat offensive odor and bitter taste.Stems: multiple stems per crown, 1 - 3 feet tall, branching at top, covered with grayish-green hairs
Leaves: silverish-green, soft and covered with hairs, lance-shaped, finely divided and fernlike; basal leaves longer than leaves on stems
Roots: spreading, with rhizomes and many fine lateral roots
Flowers: tiny white and yellow composite flowers in small, flat-topped, multi-branched clusters at top of stem branches; pink-flowered forms found occasionally, bloom June - August
Seeds: Seeds are tiny, flat, and oblong with a white or gray covering and slight sheen. Seed itself is dark brown underneath the covering.
Seedling: Seed leaves are generally less than 0.25 inches long, either smooth or with a very few tiny hairs. First two real leaves are opposite and hairy, with a tooth on each side near the somewhat pointed leaf tip. Subsequent leaves are also especially hairy above and may be smooth below, pale or silverish green, definitely alternate, with many finely-toothed fern-like divisions. Leaves and long leaf petioles are often curled or flexible. Veins are not obvious in leaves. Stem is not usually visible unless leaves are removed.
Not generally a serious weed pest.
Reproduction: perennialPropagation: seed and underground rhizomes
Dispersal:
State: Common throughout Wisconsin.National: Found throughout all continental U.S. except the southwest desert.
Origin: native of Eurasia
Persists on thin soils, meadows, pastures, and waste places. Often found growing along cranberry dikes and ditches; may invade new plantings and bare patches.
While scouting a cranberry bed for disease and insect pests, identify weed populations as they arise. Note the specie(s) of weed present as well as the population level relative to field area. Example: 30% yarrow, 20% boneset and joe-pye weed mix.
Davis, L. W. 1993. Weed Seeds of the Great Plains: A Handbook for Identification. Cooperative Extension Service of Kansas State University, University Press of Kansas. Lawrence, Kansas. p. 93.
Kummer, A. P. 1951. Weed Seedlings. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, U.S.A. p. 369.
Kummer, L. D., T. G. Dittl, and T. D. Planer. 1993. Wisconsin Cranberry Weeds. Wisconsin Cranberry Board, Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. p. 7.
Lorenzi, H. J. and L. S. Jeffery. 1987. Weeds of the United States and Their Control. Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, New York. p. 290.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 1981. Weeds of the North Central States: North Central Regional Research Publication No. 281. College of Agriculture, Agricultural Experiment Station. Bulletin 772. p. 180.
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