So, years ago, I got some wild sunroot seeds from an online Kansas wildflower vendor. I grew those, and they were a great vegetable. They flowered, but rather late, and the flowers were small. I saved seeds from them, and I noticed that the seeds looked significantly larger than the seeds I had originally planted. They didn't germinate as well, either. The resulting plants (which I planted in two holes in black plastic, in western, southeast, and partial southern shade, right next to each other, from my saved seed seed in 2020) had leaves with more of a domestic sunflower-type shape than regular sunflowers have. I didn't harvest them that year, due to being overwhelmed with stuff to do. I just left them in the ground, and they grew again, this year.

We kind of put a wood pile in front of them in the winter, and we didn't use all the wood; so, it's still there.

To my surprise, this year, they grew absolutely enormous. Like, way bigger than sunroots grow (such that they fell over and started sprawling on the ground like indeterminate tomatoes). They set zillions of flowers. The flowers look similar to regular sunroot flowers, but there are so many of them that they're quite ornamental, IMO. Here are some pictures (please excuse the ad on the end added by the image hosting service: I uploaded them there so it would reduce the file size, and so you wouldn't have to be logged in to see them; if you click on the image and then click on it again at the image host's site, you can get better resolution):



In the background here, you can see some regular sunflowers in my neighbor's yard; those are the ones with blacker centers behind the chainlink fence; their ancestors were probably the pollinator:

combo duplicate remover

It's possible that these aren't hybrids at all, but none of the original sunroot seeds that I grew were even close to this size, and none of them ever flowered nearly this much (even with a lot more plants).

Those are lovely @Shule ! I have a patch of sunchokes in my garden but they never flower here. Season too short I guess.
There is a long thread with information and discussion about sunroot/sunflower crosses here:
https://perrenial-food-crops.proboards. ... er-crosses
I wonder if you can get some with large seeds as well as the roots?

My sunchokes are in full bloom. In comparison, there is a small patch of them in a colonial style garden at the state fair, one town over. Because of the surrounding buildings creating a mostly shady environment, those almost never bloom.

I have two new "types" this year, as last year I spotted a large patch of them, in bloom of course, while crossing the local river bridge. One has tan skin, the other pinkish red. Both were not very large tuber-wise, but were very smooth. The plants seem to only grow to about 6' tall. My original type has large, but very knobby tan tubers, which are hard to clean. They can grow to 12', or more. Soon I'll see if the new ones size up better in my garden, than in the wild.

And, no sign of seed from any of them.

Shule wrote: ↑Sat Sep 25, 2021 8:59 pm So, years ago, I got some wild sunroot seeds from an online Kansas wildflower vendor.

I'd be interested in the name of the vendor because I'd love to try them myself. What a gorgeous patch you have.

I'm curious if it's crossed with a wild daisy. Those daisies along the highway always have tons of flower heads.

OhioGardener wrote: ↑Sat Oct 09, 2021 2:34 pm

Shule wrote: ↑Sat Sep 25, 2021 8:59 pm So, years ago, I got some wild sunroot seeds from an online Kansas wildflower vendor.

I'd be interested in the name of the vendor because I'd love to try them myself. What a gorgeous patch you have.

They're sold out, and they don't have nearly as many flowers as these possible hybrids from my saved seed, but here's where I got them:

http://www.kansasnativeplants.com/store ... lnt_id=388

They're the same wild sunroots that Joseph Lofthouse used to create his sunroots (crossing them with domestic ones).

@OhioGardener
I might still have seeds, or dried flowerheads with seeds in them.