Hi, Dr. Hill,
These sunflowers are growing in full sun along a rural road in the Fall Line area. I took this picture on Sept. 7. Despite all the information available about sunflower types, there is also a lot of variation among the plants and I don’t feel confident in an identification. I recently collected some seeds and I hope you can help me determine an accurate label. Thank you.
Diane,
despite your wonderful images, this is still a difficult group because there are so many that are similar. My best ‘guess’ is Helianthus divaricatus, which is fairly common and has these same leaves and flowers, as best I can tell. I know this species fairly well, so I think that is it. It compares well with images on Google.
Sincerely,
Steve Hill, Botanist, SCNPS