Bear'sfoot grows to 3 meters (9 feet) in height; natural or shaped, it makes a great background plant in a butterfly garden. The large lobed leaves have a winged petiole and are borne opposite on the stem. They afford a good place for caterpillars to pupate and butterflies to shelter from a hard summer rain.
Like other members of the sunflower family, bear'sfoot has two types of flowers borne on a head, an inflorescence composed of disk and ray florets. In most members of the Asteraceae, the disk florets are fertile and each produces a seed. The petal-like ray florets are sterile and only serve to attract pollinators. The sunflower is the prime example.
Bear'sfoot flowers are different from other members of the family. The disk florets are perfect, that is, they have both stamens and carpels which contain the ovules. But in the case of bear'sfoot, the carpels of the disk florets are sterile. Instead, the petal-like ray florets are 'female' and each has a fertile carpel which, if pollinated, will produce a small seed.
(Compiled from: "35. Polymnia", Gray's Manual of Botany, Merritt Lyndon Fernald, 8th (Centennial) Ed., Dioscorides Press, Portland, OR, 1989 printing; An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada, Nathaniel Lord Britton and Addison Brown, 2nd Ed., Dover Publications, NY, 1970; "255. Smallanthus", Flora of North America, Volume 21, page 33)
