Gaillardia x grandiflora  Van Houtte Asteraceae   Sunflower Family North America Gaillardia

                                            May Photo

Plant Characteristics: Erect branching annual, +/- 4 dm. tall; basal lvs. punctate-dotted, oblong-lanceolate, lobed, dark green, 6.5 cm. long, with tapered, winged petiole 5.5 cm. long, surface with hirsute hairs, cauline lvs. to 12 cm. long, remotely lobed, sessile; fl. heads radiate, 8 cm. across, solitary on peduncles +/- 15 cm. long;  disk fls. fertile, dark red, 13 mm. long with a scarious calyx; stamens 4, not exserted; style 1, stigmas 2, red fringed, reflexed, +/- 5 mm. long, exserted; achenes hairy at base when immature and hairy all over when mature; ray fls. +/- 17 in number, 3 cm. long, 2 cm. wide, 2 cleft at end, yellow or yellow with red base, each with 7 prominent green veins on lower side; style 7 mm. long, reddish, leaf-like and grooved or inrolled, no stigma, no stamens; calyx six-parted with scarious, triangular, awned scales, some with 2 scales petal–like and longer; involucre of many reflexed, leaf-like phyllaries, variable in length from 1.5 cm. to 6.0 cm. the longest being the lowest on the pedicel; receptacle globose, with a small bristle-like fringe among the fls.

Habitat:  Escape from cultivation, will thrive in sun and heat.  Blooms in late spring and early summer.

Name:  Named for Gaillard de Marentonneau, French botanist.  Grandiflora, large flowered. (Bailey 15).

General:  Rare in the study area with only three plants known and these on a bank, just above marsh level at Shellmaker Id.  I suspect that seeds from a small plot of wildflowers planted by a County employee were spread to this site.  (my comments).        G. grandiflora was developed from native species G. aristata and G. pulchella.  (Sunset Editors, New Western Garden Book 1984 edition. 305).        My old mentor John Johnson makes the following statement about  G. grandiflora:  “According to Hortus  III, the hybrid grandiflora  is a tetraploid.  This is why it breeds true.  It also probably explains why its characteristics are robust and exaggerated, as in the phyllaries.  The hairs on the achenes and awns on the disc flowers, characteristic of G. puchella are not surprising.  Hybrids often show traits of one parent or the other.  Normal hybrids have a single set of chromosomes from one parent and one set from the other.  When such hybrids are crossed with each other, the offspring are highly variable.  Hybrids do not breed true.  But in tetraploids by some accident in the combining of the sperm and egg, the single set of chromosomes from each parent become doubled in the first division of the fertilized egg, giving the offspring four sets of chromosomes, a double set from each parent.  When these are self fertilized they breed true and give rise to offspring with four sets of chromosomes.  Tetraploids are found in nature as well as in cultivated plants.  The additional chromosomes produce more robust and vigorous plants often with organs much magnified as in the phyllaries of  G. grandiflora.”

Text Ref:  Bailey 1014; Huxley, et al. Vol. II 361; Sunset Editors, New Western Garden Book, 1984 edition, 305.

Photo Ref:  April-May 01 #15,16,16,19; May-June 01 #10A.

Identity: by John Johnson.

First Found:  May 2001.

Computer Ref: Plant Data 530.

Plant specimen donated to UC Riverside in 2004. 

Last edit 11/28/03.

                     May Photo                                                  May Photo