Few North Dakotans have not seen curlycup gumweed, for it is abundant along roadsides and in pastures throughout the state. This native of the interior grasslands, that stretch from Minnesota to Montana south to Texas, at elevations up to 5,500 ft., has spread eastward and westward with the land disturbances wrought by European man. Curlycup gumweed is a biennial that blooms and dies during its second growing season.
Mature plants are about a foot tall, with oblong leaves that are sharply toothed.
Flower heads are yellow and about an inch wide. Fruits are tiny achenes equipped with 2-8 awns. Resin from the plant has a long history of use in home remedies as a sedative and expectorant and for treatment of burns, ivy poisoning and whooping cough. Curlycup gumweed was first described for science by the German botanist Frederick Pursh in the early 1800's.