Travelers across the High Plains almost always enjoy beautiful skies, whether produced by the grandeur of storms or the colors of sunrise and sunset. On the other hand, the landscape itself can be rather drab.
An exception is provided by the prairie sunflower, a native of the American West. Blooming in massive swaths from mid-late summer, this annual is a welcome and beautiful addition to the high, semiarid Plains. Growing in single stalks or huge clumps, they favor full sunshine and sandy soil.
Of course, these sunflowers offer more than beauty, attracting pollinators and feeding a wide variety of prairie birds and mammals with their massive seed crop. Were they not a native plant, we might be less enamored with their gifts; indeed, up close, they do look a bit "weedy."
