COMMON SUNFLOWER.
Helianthus annuus, L. Composite Family.
Hispid, coarse plants. Stems.—Several feet high. Leaves.—Mostly alternate; petioled; deltoid-ovate to ovate-lanceolate; acuminate; three to seven inches long; three-ribbed at base. Flower-heads.—Large; three or four inches across, including the rays; solitary; composed of yellow ray-flowers and purple-brown, tubular disk-flowers. Involucre.—Of several series of imbricated, ovate, acuminate scales. Disk.—An inch or so across. Hab.—Throughout California.
The stately form of the sunflower is a common sight in the south, where whole fields are often covered with the plants. Their season of blossoming is supposed to be in the autumn, but we have seen them blooming just as gayly in March. This wild sunflower of the plains is believed to be the original parent of the large sunflower of our gardens.
Its seeds are used by the Indians as food and in the preparation of hair-oil.
Popular tradition makes this blossom a worshiper of the sun, and it is believed to follow him with admiring glances.
"The lofty follower of the sun, Sad when he sets, shuts up her hollow leaves, Drooping all night, and when he warm returns, Points her enamored bosom to his ray."
Another species—H. Californicus, DC.—found from San Francisco Bay southward, along streams, has something the same habit as the above, but may be known from it by its slender, smooth stems, leafy to the top, the long, sprawling, awl-shaped bracts of its involucre, and its more delicate flowers, about two and a half inches across. The disk-corollas are slightly pubescent below. This species has a rather strong balsamic odor.