Yesterday afternoon it was sunny and there was a hint of summer, at least in the light. I had only some minutes, and the one thing that immediately caught my attention, was a group of these yellow flowers that we now have all around.
They are a kind of sunflower, grow in brushes of up to two meters high, and the flowers are much smaller than those of the archetypical sunflowers.
I don’t know when these flowers turned up in Austria, but I am quite sure that we did not have them here in my youth. I suppose they came as garden flowers and now grow in the wild, or maybe they were mixed with seeds. Everything is commercial now, and of course no farmer seeds from last year’s crop today. Whatever the reason is, they seem to feel well here. Can anybody enlighten me as to their origin?
The Song of the Day is “Indian Summer” from the 1970 Doors album “Morrison Hotel”. I had the vinyl album and have just ordered the CD. See a video on YouTube.
There are 2 comments
Andreas (2008-09-22)
Thanks, but, no, they are definitely not "black-eyed susans". We have them as well, only as garden flowers, not in the wild.
These here are really high, think of 6, 7 feet, they are more yellow, less orange than the susans, and they have much smaller flower heads than typical sunflowers. They seem to lack the typical seeds as well, but from what I have seen, they are definitely related to the sunflowers.
redskiesatnight.com (2008-09-22)
Hi Andreas,
I can't see too well from the angle of your photo, but perhaps those flowers are "black-eyed susans" (Rudbeckia hirta). They are common here in the US, and have been around for years.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudbeckia_hirta
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