False sunflower

Heliopsis helianthoides, the smooth oxeye or false sunflower, is a robust perennial herb in the family Asteraceae, native to eastern and central North America from southern Canada through the central and eastern United States. It grows 60 to 150 cm tall, with erect, smooth to slightly rough, branched stems arising from a fibrous-rooted crown. Leaves are opposite, ovate to lance-ovate, 5 to 15 cm long, with coarsely toothed margins, three prominent veins from near the base, and slender petioles. The flowering heads resemble small sunflowers and are borne singly or in loose corymbose clusters at the branch tips: each capitulum has 10 to 18 yellow to golden-yellow ray florets that are persistent and remain attached even as they fade, surrounding a slightly conical disc of yellow to brownish-yellow fertile disc florets. Achenes are smooth, four-angled, and lack a pappus apart from a minute crown, distinguishing the genus from true Helianthus. The species occupies open woodland, prairie margins, meadows, and roadside habitats on moist to mesic soils.