''Tithonia rotundifolia'', the red sunflower or Mexican sunflower, is a plant in the family

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

, which is native to the warmer and moister parts of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

Range

It occurs in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

and the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

. Outside its native region it is sometimes grown as an ornamental and has become naturalized in some of these locales. In Africa it has been recorded up to an altitude of 1,580 m above sea level.

Description

Plants are perennial in the native habitat, up to 4 m tall with orange or red flowers. In USDA zones cooler than Zone 10 it is an annual. The flowers are used by many insects as a nectar source including migrating monarch butterflies. Leaves, despite the epithet, are deltoid to lanceolate, occasionally lobed. Monarch butterfly flying away from a Mexican sunflower

Monarch butterfly flying away from a Mexican sunflower

Tithonia rotundifolia Covered In the First Snow of Fall in Zone 5a

Synonyms

*''Tithonia rotundifolia'' (Mill.) S.F. Blake, Contr. Gray Herb. 52: 41. 1917. **''Tagetes rotundifolia'' Miller, Gard. Dict. ed. 8, Tagetes no. 4. 1768. **''Helianthus speciosus'' Hook., Bot. Mag. 61: t. 3295. 1834. **''Tithonia speciosa'' (Hook.) Griseb., Cat. pl. Cub. 155. 1866.A.H.R. Griesbach. 1866. Catalogus plantarum cubensium. **''Tithonia vilmoriniana'' Pamp.Tithonia vilmoriniana Pamp.
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References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2176037 Heliantheae Flora of Mexico Garden plants of Central America Flora of Florida Flora of Louisiana Flora of Central America Flora of Cuba Flora without expected TNC conservation status