Identification
This native perennial with a smooth stem grows from 3 to 8 feet tall. Mostly alternate lance-shaped leaves are 4-8 inches long by 1-2 inches wide with sharp teeth, pointed tips and bases tapering to a short stalk (B). Leaves are often arched and folded up along the central vein. At the top of the plant are one to several stalks bearing numerous flower heads 2-3 inches across (A). Each has 10-20 yellow ray florets surrounding the flat yellow disk.
Grows in open, moist bottomlands, lowland prairies and roadsides, flowering from August through October. For a plant so abundant in nearby Missouri River floodplain locations, it is surprisingly rare at Fontenelle Forest and Neale Woods wetlands where we have yet to find it. The only plants we have seen were in the small prairie transplant at the Neale Woods entrance just above the steps from the parking lot which were salvaged from a floodplain prairie in the path of a housing development. The photos are of rather stunted plants which are not thriving in this dry upland site very different from their original floodplain habitat. Much better looking populations exist in the road ditches in the Missouri River bottomlands on the Boyer Chute Refuge only a couple of miles away.
The smooth stem and toothed leaves separate it from our other “flathead” sunflowers with yellow disks.
The content of NatureSearch is provided by dedicated volunteer Naturalists of Fontenelle Forest who strive to provide the most accurate information available. Contributors of the images retain their copyrights. The point of contact for this page is: Neal Ratzlaff.