Yellow ditches

I love the profusion of yellow flowers that appear in the ditches and along the roadsides in late August and early September.  I marvel at how color can affect my emotions, and I always feel a warm delight akin to nostalgia when I see these flowers.  Many of the ones I see are of the bidens genus.  I think that was yet another thing my older sister taught me from her little Golden Guide to Wildflowers.
It is interesting to me that the word bidens comes from Latin meaning two (bi) teeth (dens).  If you notice the seeds, they sure enough have two little teeth that cause them to stick to your clothes like Velcro.  Because of this characteristic of hitching a ride on your clothes and clinging tightly, the flowers have earned the common name "tickseed" or "beggarticks".  ("Spanish needles" are in the same genus.)  Here are some pictures we took last September.  I think my son took the good shots, so probably most or all of these are his.  I think these may be bidens aristosa, which is listed in the NC DOT wildflower program info.

 

Do you notice the flowers along the roadside?  (Don't let them distract your driving.)