Melampodium

Melampodium divaricatum, the butter daisy or yellow melampodium, is an annual or short-lived perennial herb of the family Asteraceae, native to the tropical Americas from Mexico and the Caribbean south through Central America and into northern South America. It is widely cultivated as a flowering bedding plant in warm climates. Plants form bushy, much-branched mounds 30 to 80 centimetres tall, with brittle, somewhat succulent, sparsely hairy stems. The leaves are opposite, ovate to broadly lanceolate, 3 to 8 centimetres long, with shallowly toothed or sinuate margins, three prominent veins from the base, and a fresh green colour. Flower heads are abundant and showy, borne on slender peduncles in the upper leaf axils and at the stem tips, each head with eight to thirteen broad bright yellow ray florets surrounding a small yellow disc. The species blooms profusely from late spring until frost and reseeds freely in warm gardens.