Coreopsis tinctoria var. tinctoria

Native

Damp, disturbed sites.

June to August

Yellow with a red-brown center

12″ to 48″

This is a 12″ to 48″ tall, erect, usually annual, sometimes biennial forb that rises on usually a single stem from a taproot.

The stems are erect, ridged, hairless, and much branched above the middle.

The leaves are opposite, broadly egg-shaped in outline, ⅝″ to 4″ long, and 3 ⁄16″ to 1″ wide. They are distributed in 6 to 12 pairs along ⅔ or more of the stem. Lower leaves are pinnately divided, bipinnately divided, or rarely 3 times pinnately divided. They are on stalks up to 3⅛″ long. Upper leaves are usually pinnately divided, rarely undivided, and stalkless or almost stalkless. The leaf blades have usually 5 to 25 ultimate segments. The ultimate segments are narrowly linear to linear lance-shaped, ⅜″ to 1¾″ long, and 1 ⁄32″ to ⅛″ wide. They are hairless and are tapered at the base and the tip.

The inflorescence is a branched cluster of many flower heads at the ends of the upper branches.

The flower heads are 1″ to 2″ wide on stalks ¾″ to 2″ or more long. The involucre is bell-shaped and is composed of 2 series of usually 8 bracts each. The inner bracts are triangular or egg-shaped, ⅛″ to ⅜″ long, and reddish to dark red-brown. The outer bracts are triangular to lance-shaped, 1 ⁄32″ to ⅛″ long, and green, often reddish tinged. There are 6 to 12, usually 8, ray florets and numerous disk florets. The ray florets are ½″ to ¾″ long and yellow with a dark red-brown blotch at the center. They have 3, sometimes 4, shallow lobes at the tip, usually a large central lobe and 2 smaller lateral lobes. The disk is 1 ⁄5″ to ½″ wide. The disk floret is a yellow-orange, 4-lobed corolla tube with a deep purple tip, and a forked style that is orange at the tip and extends beyond the corolla tube.

The fruit is an achene that does not have a tuft of hair (pappus) attached.

Other Coreopsis species have flower petals that are yellow throughout.

Prairie coreopsis (Coreopsis palmata) is unbranched. The leaves are divided well above the middle into 3 lobes well above the base and have the shape of a turkey foot. The inner bracts on the involucre are yellow-brown. The ray flowers are yellow throughout and have a rounded tip with or without a few tiny teeth at the tip. The disk florets are yellow and the disk appears yellow.