Japan and temperate East Asia, Singapore and tropical Asia
Season
summer
Shape
single flower
Identification
A short-lived perennial or annual with hairy upright branched stems to 60 cm. Alternate mostly basal leaves 4–8 cm, entire to coarsely toothed or lobed. Pinwheel or daisy-like heads 4–6.5 cm across in red, orange and yellow: ten to twenty rays red at the base and yellow at the three-lobed tip round a red-violet disc; in one variety almost all red with only the barest yellow tips. A nearly pyramidal achene. The state flower of Oklahoma and the county flower of Penghu, Taiwan.
Habitat
Sand, coasts, roadsides and beds, tolerant of drought, salt and wind; in sheets on Penghu's basalt coasts and beaches.
Distribution
Native to the central United States and tropical America, now widely grown and naturalised; naturalised in sheets on Penghu in Taiwan, grown in beds across China, common in Japanese beds (tenningiku), grown in Singapore.
Season and behaviour
Peak May to July, May to September on Penghu, nearly all year in places; one flower lasts over a week.
Photography tips
These are the FilmAnalysis editors' notes, not content from the sources.
The red-to-yellow rays seen straight down make the pinwheel, with the three-lobed tips sharp; soft light stops the red bleeding, half a stop under. Sheets of firewheel on Penghu's coast with basalt and sea are the local emblem, wide and low. Bees and butterflies come, 1/1600 s.
Photographic styles
Pinwheels of red and yellow; a wide view of a coastal flower field.
Similar species
Great blanketflower, Gaillardia aristata (perennial, larger, mostly yellow); hybrid blanketflowers (cultivated); black-eyed Susan (black disc, all-yellow rays).
Related badge
None yet. No validated photo recognition exists for this species, so no badge is tied to it: a name in the encyclopedia is not evidence in a photograph.
The illustration is original FilmAnalysis artwork. The photograph is from Wikimedia Commons; its licence and author are under it.
Why it is listed: this species comes from the Flower checklist (GBIF backbone and Wikidata verified). Names follow the GBIF backbone and Wikidata; the facts follow the sources below; photo recognition is not offered.
