Sunflower is one of my favorite flowers, so I was excited to see wild sunflowers. Sunflower seeds brings back childhood memories since it was staple snack, it was nearly impossible in the summer to see a kid without a bag of sunflower seeds. What I didn’t know that you can eat flowers, you can boil it and serve with butter or even using shells as substitute for coffee.
Sunflower can adapt to variety of soil and climates, but wild sunflowers are native to Central United States and Mexico. As most people are used to domesticated sunflower that usually have only one (or two) flowers on top of the stem, the wild sunflower have several flowers branching out of from the stem. Wild sunflowers also usually have smaller flowers with smaller seeds than domesticated sunflowers. Sunflowers can grow up to 6 feet but often in the wild, sunflowers will stay short to reduce risk of toppling over during rain. Wild or domesticated, sunflowers remain bright yellow flower with dark brown/black in the center with thick stem and big leaves.
My iNaturalist observation can be found here.