Plant Identification

[sam_acw]

Anyone got any idea what these plants could be?
They're in a sunny spot, in sandy soil and in an area next to potato and cabbage fields. They have small fuzzy seed heads which have held on through several months of minus temperatures, snowfall and ice.
I'm wondering if they seed heads might be a possible spark tinder as it'd be easy to collect a load of them and if the straight but pithy stalks could be a possible hand drill shaft.
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n26/sam_acw/SDC16939.jpg
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n26/sam_acw/SDC16941.jpg
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n26/sam_acw/SDC16944.jpg

[Ehecatl]

I don't know the name of it but it looks like this:

6315

I tried a fire steel on it yesterday and the result was instant flame! Considering all the rain we've had I was impressed.

M@

[sam_acw]

It's a similar type of fluff but smaller and more of them and they come at the top of a single stalk in an umbrella form (hence umbillifer). Yours remind me more of clematis seeds.
It's surprising how well they keep dry in the wet.
It's not essential though, I doubt you're ever more than a couple of hundred metres from a birch tree here!

[JonnyP]

Looks like some sort of thistle down to me Sam.. Mix it in with other tinders cos if you light it on its own it just goes woof and goes out.. All bark n no bite as it were..

[Bushwhacker]

Looks like Ragwort to me.

[Al21]

Could be Tansy, hard to say when it's all brown and shrivelled like that.

Al

[OakAshandThorn]

My best guess is some type of Goldenrod, but I'm not sure if it grows outside of the US.

[jbrown14]

My best guess is some type of Goldenrod, but I'm not sure if it grows outside of the US.

That was exactly my thought. T^