Sneezeweed

Small head sneezeweed -- annual
Helenium microcephalum var. microcephalum
(hel-EE-nee-um my-kro-SEF-uh-lum)
Growing wild 25 miles east of Lamesa, Texas
June 2008

Found growing in a low spot that captured more rain water than the surrounding area. Along with the sneezeweed, quite a variety of other plants grew there: milkweed, ironweed, snake gourd, frogfruit and more. The butterflies were having a hayday that afternoon.

The sneezeweed was about two feet tall and on each plant a number of flowers sat atop the winged stems, slightly fanned out. Growing in a stand, they made a pretty show with colors from brown, red, gold, and pale green. I gathered seeds from dried plants, apparently last year's growth, so I'm guessing they are good self-sowers.

Although this is called sneezeweed, I didn't have any reaction to it. However, this is a deadly plant if ingested by livestock.

Links:
Listed on the Texas Toxic Plant site, it reports that it is found throughout Texas, mostly in the western portion but excluded from the Piney Woods. Interestingly enough they also list burning as a way of controlling it and the place where we found this was coming back after a burn.

It is listed on the Texas A&M site as a Texas native, and again warns about the danger to livestock it poses. A good picture of its form can be found there.