false sunflower
Heliopsis helianthoides
Unlike true sunflowers, both the outer ray flowers and the inner disk flowers of the false sunflower are fertile and capable of producing seeds.
- Scientific name
- Heliopsis helianthoides
- Taxonomy
- Plantae › Tracheophyta › Magnoliopsida › Asterales › Asteraceae › Heliopsis
- IUCN Red List status
- Least Concern
- Population trend
- stable
- Biome
- grassland
- Habitat
- Tallgrass prairies, meadows, open woodlands, and roadsides.
- Diet
- Autotrophic (photosynthesis)
- Range
- North America, United States, Canada
- Size
- 90 to 150 cm tall
- Lifespan
- Perennial (3 to 5+ years)
- Active
- diurnal
- Threats
- Habitat fragmentation, agricultural expansion, and competition from invasive plant species.
- Safe to approach?
- Harmless. This plant is completely safe to approach, touch, and photograph. Please avoid trampling wild patches and do not harvest wild specimens so that local pollinators can continue to feed.
Heliopsis helianthoides is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, known by the common names rough oxeye , smooth oxeye and false sunflower . It is native to eastern and central North America from Saskatchewan east to Newfoundland and south as far as Texas, New Mexico, and Georgia.
Photo: Joshua Mayer, CC-BY-SA, via iNaturalist
Plain-text version: /species/3f26d66a-15a5-4fdb-b0c0-dc3aacf33b9a.md