Flower:

Yellow sunflower 2 to 3½ inches across with 10 to 25 petals (ray flowers). The center disk is usually purplish brown, but is sometimes yellow. When the weather is especially dry the petals fold up lengthwise or become twisted.

The bracts are short, wide and flattened, usually with a dull point at the tip and short hairs around the edges. One plant has 1 to several flowers at the end of long mostly naked branching stems.

Leaves and stem:

Leaves are up to 4 inches long and ¾ to 1 inch wide, generally shaped like the tip of a spear, with a very rough texture and little or no leaf stem. A pair of prominent lower veins run parallel to the center vein. The leaf edges have shallow, widely spaced teeth and short hairs. Color is dull gray-green, almost olive. Attachment is opposite and most leaves are in the lower part of the plant, but there may be small oval leaves widely spaced above the midpoint, possibly alternately attached. The main stem is bristly and turns reddish brown with age.

Notes:

Stiff Sunflower was formerly known as Helianthus rigidus. Sunflowers can be difficult to ID, partly because the flowers are all similar, and partly because they often hybridize. Stiff Sunflower has mostly opposite gray-green leaves with little or no leaf stem, most of which are below the midpoint of the plant, flowers with a (usually) purplish brown center disk, and flattened bracts with a dull point at the tip. It is one of the first sunflowers to bloom in summer.