Texas yellow star
Click for greater clarity.
The current flag of Texas and Texas state seal include a white, five-pointed star, but in 1836 the first national flag of the Republic of Texas had a yellow five-pointed star on it. That accords with the wildflower shown here, Lindheimera texana, known not coincidentally as Texas star, Texas yellow star, and also, though starlessly, a Lindheimer daisy. While most daisies have varying numbers of rays, this species always has five.
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Posted on this date last year: a different yellowness, that of a gorgeous colony of sunflowers on the Blackland Prairie in far northeast Austin. The folded-down ray on one of the sunflowers was most likely the handiwork of a spider.
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The daily posts that you’ve become accustomed to will continue while I’m away from Austin. Feel free to comment if you’d like, but please be aware that it may be a while before I can respond.
© 2012 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
Wunderschön, wie zwei kleine Sonnen.
LG Mathilda 😉
Mathilda
June 25, 2012 at 6:35 AM
Mathilda finds these two flower heads to be like two small suns, and I find that that’s a pretty image.
Steve Schwartzman
June 30, 2012 at 3:21 AM
Your mention of that 1836 flag, with its yellow star on a blue background, reminded me of your earlier post, Yellow on Yellow Against Blue. It’s fun to imagine that the flag colors were chosen to reflect the glory of the Texas fields in spring – fanciful, but fun.
shoreacres
June 25, 2012 at 6:40 AM
Good connection. I hadn’t thought about the other post because I wrote this one first. And I hadn’t thought about rain, but that’s what we’ve got in New York today.
Steve Schwartzman
June 25, 2012 at 8:23 AM
This one looks like the sunflower family, but looks can be deceiving. ~ Lynda
pixilated2
June 25, 2012 at 6:42 AM
You’re right that this is in the sunflower family, also known as the composite family. This daisy is one of the many DYCs, or darned yellow composites, that we have in Texas (and so many other places).
Steve Schwartzman
June 25, 2012 at 10:02 AM
Does that have any relationship to “The Yellow Rose of Texas” in the country song my Daddy used to sing?
Laura Crepeau
June 25, 2012 at 7:42 AM
I didn’t know the answer to your question, Laura, so I did some searching. See what you think of the account in this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Rose_of_Texas_%28song%29
Steve Schwartzman
June 25, 2012 at 10:13 AM
Apparently, per the Wikipedia article, the rose was metaphorical.
Laura Crepeau
June 25, 2012 at 10:48 AM
You made me think of the line by Gertrude Stein: “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”
Steve Schwartzman
June 26, 2012 at 6:30 AM
[…] Texas yellow star, Lindheimera texana, goes to seed and dries out, it leaves behind “starry” remains that […]
Stars, they come and go « Portraits of Wildflowers
June 25, 2012 at 12:51 PM
[…] A wildflower from a different family, Lindheimera texana, has come to be called Texas star or Texas yellow star. Like the star on the state flag, a Texas star flower head always has five rays—as opposed to most local yellow composite flowers, where the number of rays varies from one specimen to another within a given species. Another distinctive characteristic of Lindheimera texana is the notch at the tip of each ray (which you can see more clearly in a close-up from 2012). […]
Texas stars and bluebonnets | Portraits of Wildflowers
April 24, 2013 at 6:23 AM
[…] The flower heads of Gaillardia pulchella, known as firewheels and Indian blankets, are red with yellow fringes. The flowers of Lindheimera texana, called Texas yellow stars, bear only the color of their common name. (A post from 2012 afforded you a much closer look at yellow stars.) […]
Red and yellow | Portraits of Wildflowers
May 18, 2016 at 5:06 AM