Bidens pilosa is an annual herb native to tropical and subtropical America and now naturalized across many warm regions worldwide. It grows in disturbed ground, cultivated fields, roadsides, grassland, forest margins, and stream edges. The flower heads may have four to eight white or cream ray florets surrounding numerous yellow-orange disc florets, although some forms lack conspicuous rays. Individual flower heads can have five broad white rays around a compact golden center.

The plant produces narrow, dry fruits tipped with two to four backward-barbed awns. These cling readily to clothing and animal fur, allowing the seeds to travel well beyond the parent plant. Young shoots and leaves are eaten as a cooked vegetable in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, although plants should be collected only from uncontaminated sites and correctly identified. In Colombia it occurs from lowlands to approximately 10,000 feet and is recorded across the Andean, Caribbean, and Pacific regions. Photographed in Colombia.