shaggy soldier

Shaggy soldier is an annual herb about 25 cm (10 in.) tall (exceptionally up to 80 cm) and opposite leaves. It is so highly branched that it produces two side shoots at just about every node. The stems, leaves and bracts are all sparsely to densely hairy, with a mixture of glandular and simple hairs. The lower leaves are ovate and about 5 to 9 cm long and toothed, while the upper ones are smaller and more lanceolate. They all have petioles about 1 cm long and lack stipules.

A typical plant will produce numerous flower heads, arranged in threes (technically, dichasial cymes) with 2 cm long peduncles at the tip of every branch. Each flower head is around 5 mm across and contains about 25 tiny (3 mm) yellow disc florets with five lobes at the ends, and five widely-spaced, larger (5 mm), petal-like, white ray florets with 2 or 3 crenate teeth. Both the disc and ray florets are fertile, but the disc florets are bisexual while the ray florets are female. The fruits are 1 to 1.5 mm long brown to black achenes, tapered at the base and awned with a white pappus.

Galinsoga quadriradiata and its cousin Galinsoga parviflora are both edible and can be used as a pot herb or in salads, although outside of their native range they have not been widely adopted as a culinary item other than in China. G. parviflora is preferred as a salad green due to its non-hairy leaves. If you happen to live in a tropical region, care must be taken to not confuse them with the distantly related, and visually similar, Tridax procumbens.