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| Bidens aristosa |
I have a pretty yellow flower blooming in my garden this
week: bearded beggarticks (
Bidens
aristosa). It is an annual member of the Asteraceae family that can grow to
be as large as a shrub, covered in late summer with soft yellow flowers adored
by bees. Another common name is tickseed sunflower, and while it resembles
sunflowers (
Helianthus), the foliage
is quite different; the leaves are heavily lobed and soft to the touch.
I have loved this flower for years but haven’t grown it in a
long time. This year’s flower came to me by way of a friend who knew that I
liked it, but the story is more interesting than that. I moved to Georgia 31 years ago. Harry’s Farmers Market in Alpharetta was newly open at
the time and we shopped there a lot. A roadside near the store had a gorgeous
hillside of this plant and the fall blooms were quite noticeable.
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| Bidens aristosa foliage |
At some point, in later years, I must have gathered some
seeds because I remember having them bloom at my old house; I haven’t had
them since we moved in 2003. Harry's store closed in 2014 and the flowers on the
roadside diminished over the years, barely noticeable on my less frequent trips
on that road.
About two years ago, construction was slated for the road
and the hillside was in the way. A friend of mine, who was getting into native
plants, got permission to rescue plants along the road and he found the
Bidens. I helped him to identify it and
shared my story of blooms long ago. When he got seedlings this spring, he
shared some plants with me, and now these plants, long admired, are with me
again.
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| Carpenter bee on Bidens aristosa |
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