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Species of the Week
Number 19 --
October 9, 2006
In the Species of the Week feature of the Wildwood Web we took a close look
at one of the species that lives in Wildwood. To see the earlier featured species check the Species
of the Week archives.
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Sneezeweed
Helenium autumnale
The species name of sneezeweed, autumnale,
says that it blooms in autumn with the goldenrods and asters, and
indeed it does. However, it starts its blooming in midsummer,
and continues well into autumn. Like the asters and goldenrods
that it is currently appearing with, it is a member of the
Asteraceae, or sunflower family. Members of this family have
two kinds of flowers in each inflorescence or flower cluster.
Sneezeweed has an almost globular head of some 200-400 yellow-brown
tubular flowers, surrounded by around 8-20 bright yellow ray
flowers, each of which has one petal with three little teeth.
Both kinds of flowers are clearly seen in the picture below.
The leaves are not so distinctive. They are long, pointed,
sometimes toothed, and moderately to densely hairy.
The name sneezeweed supposedly comes from the way
the ray flowers stick out from under the globular head of disc
flowers in a somewhat bedraggled manner, giving the impression that
the flower head has just sneezed. This may be nothing but a
cute story, but it is certain that sneezeweed was not named for its
ability to cause allergies. Its attractive flowers serve to
draw insect pollinators, and so the pollen is heavy and remains with
the plant. Flowers, like ragweed, which do cause misery for
allergy sufferers, bypass insects and throw their pollen to the
wind. Sneezeweed is grown for ornament, and nursery folks have
sometimes renamed it Helen's flower, presumably to avoid any
suspicion that it might cause allergies
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| The genus name is indeed in honor of a
Helen, Helen of Troy, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta whose
abduction by Paris of Troy, started the Trojan War. According
to legend she was abducted while picking flowers and was carried off
with a bouquet still in her hands. Whatever flower she may
have been picking, it was definitely not sneezeweed, which does not
occur in Europe. Nonetheless, the Greeks named some flower,
which one we are not sure, helenium in her honor.
Linnaeus, when he named the genus, borrowed the name of that unknown
flower. The genus Helenium is found only in the New World,
North America, Central America, through South America.
Sneezeweed grows from Quebec west to British Columbia, north into
the Northwest Territories, and south to Florida, Texas and
California. It is the most widespread of all the North
American members of this genus.
Sneezeweed tends to prefer moist places. It grows on moist
roadsides, in moist fields, along streams and ditches, in seeps and
along the edges of ponds and lakes. Wildwood, having an
abundance of such spots, should have plenty of sneezeweed, but the
plant is surprisingly not that common in the park. There is a
healthy patch of it, however, in the wet area a little ways inside
from the gate and before the Grand Staircase.
GGC |
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