Far from the Usual Crowd

Spend enough time in an area, and you learn the rhythms of the life that shares that place. When the first Golden Alexanders normally bloom in the spring; when the Pale Purple Coneflowers appear, followed by the regular Purple Coneflowers; when the mid- and late-summer Silphiums take over. The precise timing may be swayed by rainfall or temperature from year to year, but the sequence generally remains the same.

Recently, as early October sees most flowers faded or long since gone to seed, a flash of bright yellow way down in one of the basins near Gable Street caught my eye. It was low-growing and isolated amid browning grasses, far from the usual crowd of goldenrods that remain nearer to the trail. A peek through the camera lens confirms my hunch upon seeing the disheveled yellow buttons fringed with weirdly shaped tapered petals. Sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale)!

Spot the Sneezeweed!

In previous years I had seen a small patch near the trail entrance of Sherman Drive, but having lost track of that one I figured it simply didn’t thrive amid the crowded grasses and other assertive plants. Sneezeweed likes moist soil, and parts the low-lying parts of the basins along the trail can provide more consistent moisture than the higher, drier parts of the basins closer to the trail. It is a late-blooming flower, bringing a pop of yellow long after many of the rest of the yellow-flowering goldenrods and others have turned to fluff.

Though there are several colorful cultivars, our Sneezeweed here appears to be the native variety. Its common name comes not from its pollen inducing allergies, but from the occasional use of its dried powders as snuff.