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Telegraphweed

Heterotheca grandiflora

Also called Telegraph Plant, Silk Grass Golden Aster, Telegraph Weed

Telegraphweed
Photo: Forest & Kim Starr, CC BY 3.0

Telegraphweed is a tall, bristly, weedy wildflower in the daisy family, native to the southwestern US and northwestern Mexico. It thrives in open, disturbed ground such as roadsides and is rarely grown on purpose.

Family
Asteraceae (Daisy family)
Grows as
Grass
Light
Full sun
Water
Needs little supplemental water once established; drought tolerant in its native dry habitat.
Soil
Tolerates poor, dry, sandy or gravelly soil.
Temperature
Hardy in warm, subtropical to arid conditions; cold tolerance is not well documented.
How easy
Easy
Native range
SW. U.S.A. to Mexico (Baja California)
Climate
subtropical

About

Heterotheca grandiflora is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common name silk-grass goldenaster or telegraphweed. It is native to the southwestern United States (California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona) and northwestern Mexico (Baja California), but it can be found in other areas as an introduced species, such as Hawaii. It is often a roadside weed even where it is native.

Heterotheca grandiflora is a tall, bristly, glandular plant exceeding a meter (40 inches) in height and densely foliated in hairy to spiny toothed or lobed leaves. Leaves are smaller and more widely spaced toward the top of the stem, which is occupied by an inflorescence of bright yellow daisy-like flower heads. The disc and ray florets drop away to leave a spherical head of achenes, each with a long white pappus.

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Heterotheca grandiflora by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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