Porter's sunflower, also known as Stone Mountain or Confederate daisy
Helianthus porteri on Stone Mtn.
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Asterales
Family: Asteraceae
Genus: Helianthus
Species:
H. porteri
Binomial name
Helianthus porteri
(A.Gray) Pruski 1998 not (A.Gray) Heiser 1978 (1978 name not validly published)
Synonyms[1]
  • Gymnolomia porteri (A.Gray) A.Gray
  • Heliomeris porteri (A.Gray) Cockerell
  • Rudbeckia porteri A.Gray
  • Viguiera porteri (A.Gray) S.F.Blake

Helianthus porteri is a species of sunflower known by the common names Porter's sunflower,[2] Stone Mountain daisy[3] and Confederate daisy. The term "daisy" is imprecise because the species is a sunflower (Helianthus) rather than a daisy (Bellis and related genera). Likewise, although the plant grows on Stone Mountain, GA, its range extends well beyond. The connection to the Confederacy is through Stone Mountain which contains a confederate monument, although the connection is tenuous as the species was named before the Civil War in 1849 by Harvard botanist Asa Gray in honor of Thomas Conrad Porter, a Pennsylvanian minister and botanist who collected the plant in Georgia.[4] Gray initially named the plant Rudbeckia porteri,[5] later changed to Helianthus in 1998 by John F. Pruski.[6]

The species is native to the southeastern United States, including Alabama and Georgia, but has been introduced to granite outcrop areas in North Carolina as an aggressive weed.[7][8] Helianthus porteri grows on thin soils on and around flat rock granite and gneiss outcrops.[9] It is an annual herb up to 100 cm (40 inches) tall. One plant usually produces 5 or more flower heads, each containing 7 or 8 yellow ray florets surrounding 30 or more yellow disc florets.[10][11]

References

  1. The Plant List, Helianthus porteri (A.Gray) Pruski
  2. USDA, NRCS (n.d.). "Helianthus porteri". The PLANTS Database (plants.usda.gov). Greensboro, North Carolina: National Plant Data Team. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
  3. Scott Ranger's Nature Notes http://scottranger.com/helianthus-porteri-confederate-daisy.html
  4. Heller, A. A. (1901). "Thomas Conrad Porter". The Plant World. 4 (7): 130–131. ISSN 0096-8307. JSTOR 43475709.
  5. "Rudbeckia porteri in Global Plants on JSTOR". plants.jstor.org. Retrieved 2022-09-19.
  6. Pruski, John F. (1998). "Helianthus porteri (A. Gray) Pruski (Compositae), a New Combination Validated for the Confederate Daisy". Castanea. 63 (1): 74–75. ISSN 0008-7475.
  7. Biota of North America Program 2014 county distribution map
  8. Weakley AS. 2015. Flora of the southern and mid‐Atlantic states. University of North Carolina Herbarium, North Carolina Botanical Garden, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. [WWW document] URL http://www.herbarium.unc.edu/flora.htm Archived 2018-10-06 at the Wayback Machine
  9. Scott Ranger's Nature Notes http://scottranger.com/helianthus-porteri-confederate-daisy.html
  10. Flora of North America, Helianthus porteri (A. Gray) Pruski, 1998. Confederate daisy
  11. Blake, Sydney Fay 1918. Contributions from the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University 54: 114–115, as Viguiera porteri


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