Mutant Sunflower

The Sunflower Trees (Tithonia diversifolia (Hemsl.) A. Gray) are huge and in full bloom this November. They are attracting all types of insects.

As I've blogged before, these are a favorite of African farmers for their drought tolerance and their ability to survive just about any kind of bug assault. Here, they'd be more pest than ornamental if they were not carefully cultivated.

Tithonia spp. are not true sunflowers. They are in the aster family but have their own genus; Tithonia Desf. ex Juss. Above: The Sunflower Trees reach to the crown of the 25-foot-tall Queen Palms (Syagrus romanzoffiana).

I do have a few tall, true sunflowers blooming this week. These Helianthus annus are likely the Russian Giant variety. I found this Stink Bug (Pentatomidae) to be kind of interesting. He's hung on to this one sunflower for days, sucking the juice from the stem.

MUTANT SUNFLOWER

One of the tall sunflowers is a mutant like none I've seen before.

It has a second head growing out of the first one.

I've taken this series of photos as the second head emerged and bloomed.

Because of the short daylight hours it has taken this specimen about a week to fully develop.

I'll save the seeds from this flower and try to grow more mutants in the spring.

It is unusual to have such tall sunflower at this latitude in late November. This mutant plant is about 7-feet tall (2.13 meters).