Smooth oxeye is a perennial wildflower native across eastern and central North America that looks like a small sunflower but isn't one: its flower centers are cone-shaped, and its yellow set seed and stay on the head after they dry. It blooms from early summer into fall. It is also called false sunflower or oxeye.
Appearance
- Appearance
- A clump-forming perennial, usually 1½–5 ft (40–150 cm) tall, with branched, upright stems.
- Leaves
- Opposite, egg-shaped to nearly triangular leaves up to 4.5 in (11 cm) long, with coarse teeth. Texture ranges from smooth to sandpapery depending on the variety.
- Flowers
- Heads 1.5–3.5 in (4–9 cm) across, with about 10 rays that start orange-yellow and fade to pale yellow around a golden to brownish cone.
- Flowering time
- From midsummer into early fall; June through September in Minnesota.
- Fruit
- Both the rays and the central produce seeds. The seeds are angular and dark, without a fluffy tuft.
Look-alikes
Smooth oxeye has a cone-shaped center, and its dried rays stay attached. True sunflowers like Jerusalem artichoke have a flatter center, and their rays wither and fall off. Oxeye's seeds are angular, while sunflower seeds are flatter.
Why they get mixed upBoth are tall summer plants with yellow, sunflower-like heads.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- Prairies
- Woodland edges
- Thickets
- Roadsides
- Railroad edges
- Range
- Native across eastern and central North America, from southern Canada to Texas and Georgia.
- Preferred conditions
- Sun to part shade. It handles dry prairie and poor soil but grows larger in moist ground.
- Flowering
Flowers Jun–Sep
Flowers Jun–Sep
Growing it
- Care
- A popular, tough garden plant for full sun that tolerates drought and poor soil. Cutting back early in the season keeps plants more compact. The stiff stems make good cut flowers, and the dried rays stay on the head, which suits dried arrangements.
Name and classification
- About the name
- The two best-known varieties are var. helianthoides, with smoother leaves, mostly east of the Mississippi, and the rough-leaved var. scabra (rough oxeye), mostly in the Midwest and west of the Mississippi.
- Varieties and forms
- Garden cultivars include double-flowered 'Asahi' and variegated 'Loraine Sunshine'.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- NENot EvaluatedNot yet assessed
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