Sunflowers

The Sunflowers by Charles Woolley Dodd.

A quick filter.

The genus Helianthus is almost entirely North American, and for the distinction and limitation of its species, we are indebted to the labor of Dr. Asa Gray, now universally recognized as the highest authority on North American plants.

In the recently published second part of his Synoptical Flora of North America, he has described thirty-nine species, six of which are annual.

The synonyms and cross-naming adopted by previous authors have led to much confusion, which probably will not now be altogether cleared up, for Dr.

There is always more or less difficulty with a variable genus in making garden plants fit wild specific types, but in the following notes, I have described no kinds which I have not myself cultivated, selecting the best forms and giving them the names assigned severally by Dr.

Gray to the species to which our garden plants seem to come nearest.

Helianthus multiflorus, or according to Asa Gray, speaking botanically, H. decapetalus Hort.

However, if you want a tall, naturalistic planting, pair the Tall Joe Pyeweed with Goldenrod and Purple Flowering Ironweed.

A splash of sunshiny yellow, such as sunflowers or other species of Helianthus, can make a tall planted area really pop.

Some purple asters could also add to the fall display, but one needs to make this a tall backdrop to a garden or plant it in front of a line of trees in a wooded area.

It is a mix of colors that show up well from a distance, and the tall plants will shade out stray weeds.

Yes, yes.

It's a Helianthus lemon queen.

It is just humming with bees.

People said they liked the colour of it because it wasn't too shocking.

That's interesting.

My Helianthus lemon queen has done really badly this year.

It is only just getting into gear now, and we're in the middle of September, which is really odd.

It hated the dry conditions.

Yeah.

I would also say the sunflowers, the genus Helianthus, if you want to look up some of them, which species you have might vary.

depending on where you're at, but you probably have a couple of species present where you're at.

Yeah, like woodland sunflower, swamp sunflower.

them.

Helianthus and Gustafolius.

Helianthus and Gustafolius.

And Gustafolius, yeah.

Helianthus and Gustafolius.

That sounds right.

Oh,

gosh.

Perhaps it was the succession of plants that began to give me some sense of a design that included me, plants whose colours and fragrances so suffused my senses that I could carry them with me, pull them into my soul, where they could be mysteriously watered by the fountain of the Father and begin to inform me of other ways of knowing.

Starting in earlier spring, the first blossoms I found were low and hidden, pungent and musky-smelling, darkly coloured, carpeting the banks of brooks and spreading gradually from lowlands through a whole spectrum of colours, until at midsummer, the yellows of Helianthus and Solidago blazed with the fuchsias of wild flocks, while the vermilion of Bergamot was like molten fire.

I remember gathering leaves, petals and whole flower heads in my small sticky hands, palming their silky surfaces until they had given up all their oily fragrance into the skin of my hands.

Finally, when they became papery, I would put collections of them under my light summer quilt and the smells remained or mysteriously returned and it was like sleeping in a fragrant meadow.