Are there weeds with orange flowers growing on your property?
In this guide, we take a look at the most common types you’re likely to find. And help you identify them with pictures and detailed descriptions of their main characteristics.
Let’s dive in!
Common Weeds With Orange Flowers
Orange Mountain Dandelion (Agoseris aurantiaca)
ORANGE MOUNTAIN DANDELION BY BREWBOOKS
Orange mountain dandelion is also called orange agoseris. The weed is a herbaceous perennial. And it’s common in many parts of North America where you’ll often find it growing in the meadows of mountainous regions.
Despite the name, the weed is not a dandelion. But it does have a very similar appearance. The plant produces several leafless stalks, each with a single flower head at the top. The flower head looks similar to a dandelion, consisting of many orange florets.
The basal leaves grow in a rosette. Each leaf is lance-shaped and sometimes lobed or toothed. If you break the leaves or the stem the weed exudes a milky white sap
Trumpet Creeper (Campsis radicans)
Trumpet creeper is also called cow itch vine and hummingbird vine. The weed is native to the eastern United States and is naturalized in many other areas.
The plant produces large, trumpet-shaped flowers that attract hummingbirds and other pollinators. Making it popular with some gardeners.
But outside of its native range, it can be a very invasive weed. You’ll often find it growing in cultivated fields and woods. As well as along fence rows, roadsides, and the banks of streams. And if it escapes from a nearby garden, you might find it climbing over your garden fence or wall. In warm and wet conditions it can take over your yard in a single growing season.
Trumpet creeper is a viney weed that grows up to 40 feet. The plant sends out tendrils that eventually develop into thick woody stems. Growing up to several centimeters thick.
The flowers can be orange, red, or yellow and grow 2-3 inches long. Following the flowers, large seed pods develop that each contains hundreds of seeds. The seed pods dry and split open to release their contents.
Orange Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis)
Orange jewelweed is also known as spotted touch-me-not and orange balsam. The plant is widely distributed throughout northern and eastern North America. You’ll often find it growing in moist areas with partial shade.
Orange jewelweed is well-known as an attractive wildflower. It’s an annual plant that blooms in the summer, producing orange flowers with dark orange or red spots. The plant continues to flower until the first frost kills the plant. The flowers are about an inch long. And they grow in clusters of 1-3 small orange flowers that dangle on thin stalks.
The weed grows from 2-5 feet tall, with succulent, pale-green stems. Oval leaves grow alternately from nodes on leaf stalks, reaching 1-3 inches in length. The edges of the leaves are toothed. And both the stems and the leaves are hairless.
After flowering, the orange jewelweed plant develops pale green seed pods. Each containing 3-5 brown seeds. The seed pods are sensitive to touch when ripe, bursting open to eject the seeds away from the parent plant. Hence the name ‘spotted touch-me-not’. The seeds lie dormant in the soil during the winter and then germinate in April and May.
Orange jewelweed likes growing in the same conditions as poison ivy. And you’ll often find it in the same places. If you have a brush with poison ivy, you can rub the juice from the stems and leaves of orange jewelweed on the affected area of skin to give you relief.
Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)
Butterfly weed is also known as orange milkweed and butterfly milkweed. As these names suggest, it’s a member of the milkweed family. The plant is native to North America. And gardeners sometimes choose to grow it as an attractive wildflower in home gardens. The plant has showy flowers that are well-known for attracting butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, and other pollinators during the blooming season.
Butterfly weed produces clusters of small yellow-orange to bright-orange blossoms. Each flower cluster measures about 2.5-inches across and grows at the top of straight, hairy stems. Occasionally, you might find this weed with orange-red flowers or yellow flowers.
Each plant has many stems. With dark-green, lance-shaped leaves growing alternately. After flowering, the weed develops large seed pods. By early autumn, the seed pods dry up and open, releasing many small brown seeds. Each seed has silky hairs attached that help the seed float in the air and be dispersed by the breeze.
Orange Hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum or Pilosella aurantiaca)
Orange hawkweed is also known as devil’s paintbrush, flameweed, and devil’s weed. It’s a native plant to Europe and an introduced species in North America.
Although sometimes sold in nurseries as an ornamental plant, orange hawkweed is also considered a noxious weed in many areas.
You’ll often find it growing in pastures, meadows, and lawns. Where it aggressively outcompetes and crowds out native plants with its dense growth.
Orange hawkweed has tall flowering stems that usually grow up to 24-inches. At the top of the stems are clusters of red-orange flowerheads. The flowerheads have an orange center with red at the edges and grow to about 1-inch in diameter.
Shortly after they start to flower, each plant sends out white-fuzzy stolons that creep along the ground up to 12-inches helping the weed to spread. Orange hawkweed also spreads by seeds and rhizomes.
The leaves are mostly in a basal rosette and are lanceolate, with hairs on both sides. You might see 1 or 2 stem leaves.
You’ll usually find this weed growing in sunny locations, although it can sometimes grow in partial shade. It’s common to find orange hawkweed in meadows, pastures, forest areas, and along roadsides.
Orange Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus)
Orange nasturtiums are sometimes planted by gardeners for their beautiful flowers. But they can also be a weed when they escape and spread.
The plant produces large, funnel-shaped, orange flowers with 5 petals. And like other nasturtiums, it has a distinctive spur growing from the back of the flower. The flowers grow on their own at the end of long stalks that grow in leaf axils.
The plant has shield-shaped leaves that are hairless and grow alternately, connected to the stem by a long leaf stalk.
In North America, you’ll often see orange nasturtium flowering from spring to autumn. But in warm climates, it grows fast and blooms all year round, and can be an invasive weed.
The weed has a sprawling growth that can smother low-growing plants and prevent native plant seedlings from growing to maturity.
Scarlet Pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis or lysimachia arvensis)
Scarlet pimpernel is also called red chickweed and red pimpernel. As the name suggests, the flowers on this weed are usually red. But sometimes it’s an orange flowering weed.
Scarlet pimpernel blooms from June to September. Producing small flowers with 5-petals. The flowers are open when the sun shines. But if you come across this weed on an overcast day the flowers will probably be closed.
Before it flowers, the scarlet pimpernel plant is sometimes mistaken for chickweed. It’s a low-growing broadleaf weed with similar small oval leaves. The weed is well-known for invading lawns and gardens that are uncared for. But good lawn care practices can keep this weed out of your grass. And it’s easy to get rid of this orange flowering weed with regular mowing.
You Might Also Like:
