I have some ID question about flowers in Aster family 1.VanDusen, dry flowers garden. Picture from August. 2.Very old picture, can be from Japan 3. UBC garden, picture from May. 4. Almost 10 years old picture from October 5.I have to post this one first, because I am the most curious to know the name of these flowers. Probably VanDusen garden,August
#1 - Xeranthemum annuum #2 - Aster sp. (probably something like A. ageratoides or A. trinervius) #4 - Helianthus sp. #5 - Gaillardia sp.
Are you sure about Gaillardia? I was thinking about it but when I google no pictures like these flowers
5 looks like something in the Helenieae tribe, with flowers widest at the tip. Gaillardia is in that tribe, but others I see with petals like that are Helenium, like Helenium autumnale, Coreopsis (C. lanceolata) and a lot of other names I've never heard of.
Yes, I am fairly certain about that. What might mislead you is the enormous amount of hybrids that were selected for qualities such as dense, bicolored ray florets and more compact growth.
Here's a Gaillardia photo that looks like yours. I queried Gaillardia species, taking a cue from Axel's posting. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gaillardia_species_W_IMG_1510.jpg
The look of seed heads in Nadia's photo is typical for Gaillardia http://isotria.blogspot.ca/2011/07/summer-wildflower-seeds.html Here is how Helenium autumnale seed heads look like: http://www.nativeplant.com/plant_images/HELAUT/helaut_seedheads.jpg and here is Coreopsis (C. lanceolata) http://isotria.blogspot.ca/2011/07/summer-wildflower-seeds.html a little more down the page. Ditto to # 3: Tanacetum coccineum
Thanks for posting those, Nadia, and for the replies, Axel and Sundrop. What a totally confusing family that is. I was so surprised to learn that some Tacacetum have ray flowers, not to mention that Pyrethrum now has that name.