Gaillardia pulchella (Gaillardia)

Gaillardia pulchella

Gaillardia pulchella Foug.

Gaillardia, Indian Blanket, Firewheel, Sundance

Kingdom	Plantae	Plants, but not fungi, lichens, or algae
Subkingdom	Tracheobionta	Vascular plants—plants with a “circulatory system” for delivering water and nutrients
Division	Magnoliophyta	Flowering plants, also known as angiosperms
Class	Magnoliopsida	Dicotyledons—plants with two initial seed leaves
Subclass	Asteridae	A large class that encompasses asters
Order	Asterales	Flowering plants with a central disk flower and surrounding petals, like daisies
Family	Asteraceae	The aster family, which also includes daisies and sunflowers; from the Greek ἀστήρ, “star,” for the star-shaped flowers
Genus	Gaillardia	After Gaillard de Charentonneau, an 18th-century French magistrate, naturalist and patron of botany
Species	pulchella	Derived from the Latin for “beautiful”

About plant names...

Firewheel is native to central North America. It is a member of the aster family. The genus Gaillardia is named for an 18th-century French patron of botany, M. Gaillard de Charentonneau.

Identification: Plants reach 24" (60 cm). The stem is hairy, and multiply branched. Most of the leaves are near the base, 1½-3" (4-8 cm) long, with edges that are smooth or sometimes coarsely toothed. Flowers are the distinctive characteristic of firewheels—each petal is red or red-violet at the base, tipped with yellow, with a brownish red central disk, dividing into three lobes at the end. Sometimes the petals are solid orange or yellow.

Online References:

Gaillardia pulchella at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

Gaillardia pulchella on Missouriplants.com

Gaillardia pulchella on Wikipedia

Gaillardia pulchella on floridata.com

Gaillardia pulchella at Southeastern Arizona Wildflowers and the Plants of the Sonoran Desert

Gaillardia pulchella on Native Plants of Texas

Gaillardia pulchella on SEINet—the Southwest Environmental Information Network

Gaillardia pulchella on eFloras