This dainty and bright little flower practically made my day. Thelesperma is a genus belonging to the Asteraceae family. I was walking through campus on a relatively cloudy day with my eyes glued to the ground. As I cut through the grass, out of the corn
er of my eye I noticed a spot of yellow – the thelesperma. This small little flower caught my attention because of its brightness against a largely green backdrop. It was like a miniature sun or a drop of sunlight had fallen to brighten my cloudy day. Although my particular observation was of a single flower, this genus tends to grow in large colonies. They usually bloom from mid-spring to early summer, and their native habitat is largely along dry, sandy soil. My specific observation was an outlier to some of the conditions its genus would normally subscribe to but I choose to believe that it sprouted there for the sole purpose of catching my attention.
Source: https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=thfi
Observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/5445073