tags: Gaillardia pulchra, Image of the Day
This is a small Gaillardia pulchra bloom from a young plant I grew from wildseed and then placed in the W. 11th St. Park butterfly and pollinator garden. This is a long bloomer that will keep pushing out flowers even when one is neglectful of deadheading old blooms.
Image: Biosparite [larger]
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Very nice !-Is it an annual or perrenial?
This is a perennial. The clumps can get quite large in SE Texas. There is at least one species of leafcutter bee in the Houston area that favors this flower very much. Leafcutters have a hairy ventral surface to their abdomens for gathering pollen. One can watch a leafcutter rubbing its abdomen against the composite flowers. The bees are quite efficient, spending very little time on each blossom. I once watched a hummingbird compete with a leafcutter for access to a flower, only to be driven out of my yard at high speed by an angry bee.