Yellow Goat’s Beard

For goat aficionados, here is the delightful yellow goat’s beard (Tragopogon dubius), also called yellow salsify. This is a non-native species found just about everywhere in Minnesota blooming late spring into summer. Look for a “herd of goats” along dry, open roadsides and in sunny meadows. The eye catching flowers jump out at you, and resemble a lovely exploding star of light yellow, up to 2″ across, with slender green bracts extending beyond the petals for a dramatic effect. Like the dandelion and sunflower, yellow goat’s beard is a ray flower in the Aster family. Like its cousin, meadow goat’s beard, yellow goat’s beard is edible and has also been traditionally used for its healing qualities.

Goat’s beard is a biennial plant with a small rosette of leaves the first year. The 2nd year, one or more 1 – 3 foot stems ascend from the remains of the rosette with alternating blade-like leaves that are up to 12″ (smaller as they get higher) strongly clasping the stem. At the tip of each stem is a long stalk with a single flowerhead. The leaves are long and narrow, sometimes folding lengthwise a bit. Like dandelions, the leaves and stems exude a milky latex when bruised. The foliage is very easy to miss because it closely resembles crab grass.

The flowers tend to face the sun, so if you are walking along a road some cloudless morning heading east, you may miss them altogether, only to find their sunny faces smiling at you upon your return — but that’s only if you hurry back ! Flowers close completely up by noon!

Seed heads eventually form and dry into huge balls of whitish fluff, very similar to dandelions except for being a gigantic three inches in diameter.