Long-Bracted Tickseed Sunflower


All along the roadsides. Rich warm yellow greets the cars and trucks that pass. Long-bracted Tickseed Sunflower (Biden polylepis). It’s native to eastern and central United States and south-central Canada.

The leaves of Long-Bracted Tickseed Sunflower are quite distinctive, with sharply toothed margin, opposite and pinnately compound.

These flowers bloom from late summer to early fall. Attracting all sorts of insects — bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, skippers, beetles and more. Along with these Tickseed Sunflowers on the roadsides there are other shining yellow blooms. Other species that I’ll write about one day soon.