Hairy Golden Aster

Heterotheca villosa

Larval hostBird foodPollinator plant

Growing it

When	Flowers July to September
Type	wildflower
Sun	Full sun
Water	Low
Soil	pH 6–8
Hardiness	zone 3–7
Mature height	0.5 m
Mature spread	0.45 m
Spacing	0.3 m
Years to maturity	2
Bloom	Jul–Sep
Flower colour	Yellow read from a published flora
In bloom	July August September
Native to	AB, SK

lance-shaped leaves about 5 cm long

Where it has been recorded

BothSpecimensObservations

365 squares of about 28 km, each holding at least one record. A square is not a claim that the plant grows throughout it, and an unshaded square is unrecorded rather than empty. Darker squares hold more records, which follows roads and towns as much as it follows the plant. 131 herbarium specimens and 1,057 field observations this project may redraw. A filled dot is a pressed sheet somebody can re-examine; a hollow ring is a photograph identified by community agreement. Where the dots are dense is where people have looked, not where the plant is commonest, and empty ground is unsurveyed rather than unoccupied. How this map is made.

Which ecoregions the records fall in

Mixed Grassland south AB / SK: 925 records, high confidence
Moist Mixed Grassland south AB / SK: 709 records, high confidence
Aspen Parkland central AB / SK: 340 records, high confidence
Fescue Grassland south AB: 278 records, high confidence
Northern Continental Divide south AB: 195 records, high confidence
Boreal Transition central AB / SK: 122 records, high confidence
Cypress Upland south AB / SK: 74 records, high confidence
Western Alberta Upland central AB: 18 records, medium confidence
Eastern Continental Ranges central AB: 16 records, medium confidence
Mid-Boreal Uplands central AB / SK: 5 records, low confidence

These are counts of records collected somewhere in the region, which is the resolution of the evidence: the map above shows where inside it. A region with 3 records is not the same claim as one with three hundred, so the count travels with the region. A region missing from this list means nobody has recorded it there, which is not the same as the plant being absent. Records within 900 m of a border count for neither side, because the border is not drawn finely enough to say which one they are on. Source: GBIF occurrence search + PRESERVED_SPECIMEN pass, retrieved 2026-08-24. Boundaries digitised from the National Ecological Framework for Canada v2.2 (Ecological Stratification Working Group 1995), simplified to about 900 m for display: an outline is accurate to roughly a kilometre, not to the metre. How these counts are made.

See every observation, live and current, on GBIF or iNaturalist.

Documented animals

55 documented relationships.

nectar for

A Digger Bee LaManna et al. 2020
Anthidium mormonum LaManna et al. 2020
Brown-tailed Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Cercyonis oetus Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Common Checkered-Skipper Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Dianthidium subparvum LaManna et al. 2020
Dianthidium ulkei LaManna et al. 2020
Eupeodes snowi LaManna et al. 2020
Eupeodes volucris LaManna et al. 2020
Garita Skipperling Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Half-black Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Halictus ligatus LaManna et al. 2020
Halictus tripartitus LaManna et al. 2020
Hemipenthes morioides LaManna et al. 2020
Heriades cressoni LaManna et al. 2020
Hoplitis truncata LaManna et al. 2020
Hunt's Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Indiscriminate Cuckoo Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Lasioglossum albipenne LaManna et al. 2020
Lasioglossum obnubilum LaManna et al. 2020
Megachile apicalis LaManna et al. 2020
Megachile brevis LaManna et al. 2020
Melissa Blue LaManna et al. 2020
Milbert's Tortoiseshell Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Nevada Bumble Bee Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Northern Crescent Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Osmia juxta LaManna et al. 2020
Perdita swenki Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Purplish Copper Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Red-belted Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Red-tailed Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Stelis calliphorina LaManna et al. 2020
Stelis permaculata LaManna et al. 2020
Synanthedon bibionipennis Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Systoechus oreas LaManna et al. 2020
Tawny Crescent Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Tharsalea rubidus Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Two-ranked Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Villa alternata LaManna et al. 2020
Villa lateralis LaManna et al. 2020
Western White Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Yellow-fronted Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org

pollen for

Agapostemon texanus Guzman et al. 2022
Black-tailed Bumble Bee Clements & F. L. Long 1923
Central Bumble Bee Clements & F. L. Long 1923
Coelioxys rufitarsis Guzman et al. 2022
Colletes fulgidus Guzman et al. 2022
Lasioglossum nevadense Guzman et al. 2022
Lasioglossum prasinogaster Guzman et al. 2022
Lasioglossum pruinosum Guzman et al. 2022
Megachile perihirta Guzman et al. 2022
Melissodes microstictus Guzman et al. 2022
Nevada Bumble Bee Guzman et al. 2022
Perdita fallax Guzman et al. 2022

caterpillar host for

Cuerna alpina GBIF dataset 6e1ef328-8dc0-4366-a79f-93d5c34a5b34

Also worth knowing

Safety

Toxicity not assessed, absence of a warning is not a guarantee of safety

Buying it

About $8–$16 per plant (estimate), usually stocked by garden centres. Estimate (herb default); AB retail as of 2026

Where these numbers came from

Flower detail: not verified, a genus-level estimate