Yellow oxeye

Telekia speciosa, the heart-leaved oxeye or yellow oxeye daisy, is a stout perennial herb of the family Asteraceae growing 1-2 m tall and native to central and southeastern Europe, the Caucasus and Anatolia, where it occurs along streamsides, in damp meadows and at the margins of mountain forests. The thick branched rhizome gives rise to robust erect leafy stems that are usually somewhat glandular-pubescent above. The lower leaves are large, broadly ovate to triangular, 15-35 cm long, with deeply cordate bases, coarsely doubly serrate margins and a soft, slightly pubescent texture, borne on long stout petioles, while the upper stem leaves are smaller, sessile and clasping. From midsummer to early autumn the plant bears a few to several very showy terminal flower heads, each 6-9 cm across, on long stout peduncles arising from the upper leaf axils. The involucre is hemispheric with broad green leafy bracts; the capitulum has 20-30 long narrow strap-shaped golden-yellow ray florets surrounding a large slightly raised disc of darker orange-yellow tubular florets. The fruit is a flattened narrow cypsela with a short crown-like pappus. The whole plant is aromatic and is widely grown as a robust ornamental perennial.