Madia elegans, Elegant Tarweed

For fall bloom plant this stunning annual, 4'-6' tall, with yellow daisy like flowers and deep orange spots at base of petal. It has a clean pungent aroma and edible seeds. Butterfly food. We grow it in our prairie and in large containers.

“We are deep in the dense fogs of August. Outside my study window a multitude of sunny yellow disks float disembodied in the pervasive gray. Their scanty stems and petioles are scarcely visible, so that the blossoms themselves, with no visible means of support, seem suspended in midair. To say they are a cheering sight doesn't begin to express the impact of elegant madia (Madia elegans) blooming in the days of fog.

Its lemony yellow petals are fully open only at the beginning or the end of the day, or when, as happens regularly in August, we are enshrouded in fog.

Now I say to garden visitors on a sunny day, "Oh, if only you had been here before the sun came out." It is truly wonderful to wander in a tarweed forest, inhaling its complex soapy fragrances that smell in a way like kerosene, were the smell of kerosene entirely pleasant.” - Judith Larner Lowry in The Landscaping Ideas of Jays