There are by no
means always ten yellow rays around the yellow disks produced in
August and September; there may be any number from eight to
fifteen, although this free-flowering species, like the
PALE-LEAVED WOOD SUNFLOWER (H. strumosus), an earlier bloomer,
often arranges its "petals" in tens.
JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE, EARTH APPLE, CANADA POTATO, GIRASOLE (H.
tuberosus), often called WILD SUNFLOWER, too, has an interesting
history similar to the dark-centered, common garden sunflower's.
In a musty old tome printed in 1649, and entitled "A Perfect
Description of Virginia," we read that the English planters had
"rootes of several kindes, Potatoes, Sparagus, Carrets and
Hartichokes" - not the first mention of the artichoke by
Anglo-Americans. Long before their day the Indians, who taught
them its uses, had cultivated it; and wherever we see the bright
yellow flowers gleaming like miniature suns above roadside
thickets and fence rows in the East, we may safely infer the spot
was once an aboriginal or colonial farm.
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