Peruvian zinnia

Zinnia peruviana, commonly known as Peruvian zinnia, redstar zinnia or wild zinnia, is an annual herb in the family Asteraceae native to a broad swath of warm-temperate and subtropical America from the southwestern United States through Mexico and Central America to the Andes of South America, where it grows in dry open ground, rocky slopes, roadsides and disturbed habitats. It typically grows 30 to 80 centimetres tall on stiff, erect, sparsely branched, finely hairy stems. The leaves are opposite, sessile, lanceolate to narrow-ovate, 3 to 8 centimetres long, with entire margins, three prominent veins and a roughly hairy surface on both sides. Solitary long-stalked flower heads 2 to 4 centimetres across are borne at the stem tips, each with a single row of broad dull red, brick-red or sometimes orange-yellow ray florets surrounding a conical disc of yellow tubular florets; the rays persist on the head and fade to papery beige as the fruit matures. The achenes are flattened to angled, the ray achenes broadly winged.