[Sidenote: =California Encelia=
_Encèlia Califórnica_
=Yellow
Spring
California=]
A handsome conspicuous shrub, two feet or more high, gray and downy
when young but becoming smoother and greener, with downy, reddish
twigs, dark green leaves, and numerous flowers, on long flower-stalks.
They are two or three inches across, with three-toothed, bright yellow
rays and very dark maroon or brown centers, specked with yellow, and
velvety or hairy involucres. This grows on sea-cliffs, where it makes
very effective masses of color, in fine contrast to the blue of the sea
below and the sky above.
[Sidenote: _Encèlia frutéscens_
=Yellow
Spring
Southwest=]
A rather straggling shrub, about two feet high, with whitish, woody
stems, pale reddish twigs, and bright green leaves, which are roughened
with minute prickles on the margins and under sides, but look quite
shiny. The flower-heads are over half an inch long, in western Arizona
usually without any rays, and are not especially pretty, like a starved
Sunflower whose rays have shrivelled away in the dry heat of the
desert, but the effect of the foliage, which suggests little apple
leaves, is decidedly attractive in the arid sandy places it frequents.
There are many kinds of Helianthus, natives of the New World.
[Sidenote: =Common Sunflower=
_Heliánthus ánnuus_
=Yellow
Summer
West, etc.=]
A handsome kind, with a rough stem, from two to ten feet tall,
roughish leaves, more or less toothed, the upper alternate, the lower
opposite, and a flower-head from two to four inches across, with
bright golden-yellow, toothless rays, a maroon center, and a very dark
green involucre, with stiff, overlapping bracts. This is larger in
cultivation and is a very useful plant, for its flowers yield honey and
a yellow dye, its seeds oil and food, the leaves are good for fodder,
and the stalks for textile fiber. It is common nearly everywhere along
roadsides, as far east as Missouri, and is found as a stray in the
East.
[Illustration: California Encelia--E. Californica.
Encelia frutescens.