| Campo del Oso |
Articles:
The Natives are Friendly
Cutleaf Daisy
The Natives are Friendly
Cutleaf Daisy
 |  |  |  |  |  |
Wildflowers have been having a rough time of it this year. With the lack of fall and early summer rains
most of our state’s beautiful wildflowers are a no show. One plant that seems to be doing quite well,
despite the harsh conditions is Engelmannia pinnatifida (eng-guhl-MANH-ee-ah pin-ah-TIFF-uh-dah),
which is commonly know as Cutleaf Daisy. This hardy, reliable wildflower can be seen blooming
happily away when most other flowers are struggling just to survive.
Cutleaf Daisy makes an excellent landscape plant that typically grows to about 18 inches tall, with a
similar spread. It is a hardy perennial which is found in the wild from Nebraska to Colorado to Mexico.
This great plant is a wonderful food source for many types of ground feeding birds, such as quail dove
and turkey. Best of all the Cutleaf Daisy puts out thousands of inch wide yellow blooms from February
to November. It is easy to grow and extremely drought tolerant due to its large woody tap root. Like
most Native plants, the Cutleaf Daisy is rarely bothered by pests or disease making it a care-free
addition to any garden. The Cutleaf Daisy’s strong stems and deeply lobed leaves are covered with
fine hairs which makes this plant highly unpalatable to deer. So the Cutleaf Daisy is an outstanding
choice for areas where deer cause problems in the landscape. It is a great potted plant and will grow
in full hot all day sun, but is equally well suited to areas of dappled shade.
most of our state’s beautiful wildflowers are a no show. One plant that seems to be doing quite well,
despite the harsh conditions is Engelmannia pinnatifida (eng-guhl-MANH-ee-ah pin-ah-TIFF-uh-dah),
which is commonly know as Cutleaf Daisy. This hardy, reliable wildflower can be seen blooming
happily away when most other flowers are struggling just to survive.
Cutleaf Daisy makes an excellent landscape plant that typically grows to about 18 inches tall, with a
similar spread. It is a hardy perennial which is found in the wild from Nebraska to Colorado to Mexico.
This great plant is a wonderful food source for many types of ground feeding birds, such as quail dove
and turkey. Best of all the Cutleaf Daisy puts out thousands of inch wide yellow blooms from February
to November. It is easy to grow and extremely drought tolerant due to its large woody tap root. Like
most Native plants, the Cutleaf Daisy is rarely bothered by pests or disease making it a care-free
addition to any garden. The Cutleaf Daisy’s strong stems and deeply lobed leaves are covered with
fine hairs which makes this plant highly unpalatable to deer. So the Cutleaf Daisy is an outstanding
choice for areas where deer cause problems in the landscape. It is a great potted plant and will grow
in full hot all day sun, but is equally well suited to areas of dappled shade.
Engelmannia pinnatifida is
found in the wild over much of
the United States and Northern
Mexico. It is usually found in
calcareous loams and heavy
clay soils in Texas, Oklahoma,
Utah, New Mexico, Arizona,
Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska,
Colorado, and California. It is a
what botanists refer to as a
monotypic genus, which means
that there is only one plant in the
Cutleaf Daisy’s genus. Its
closest relative is the Texas
Yellow Star (Lindheimera
texana). The Cutleaf Daisy’s
latin name (Engelmannia
pinnatifida) honors Doctor
Georg Engelmann (1809-1884),
who was a prominent physician
and botanist in Saint Luis area.
Dr Engelmann is responsible
for the collection and
classification of many western
ranging species of plants which
were all new to science.