Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Cosmos sulphureus

sulphur cosmos, tostones
Habit Plants 30–200 cm, glabrous or sparsely pilose to hispid.
Leaves

petioles 1–7 cm;

blades 5–12(–25) cm, ultimate lobes 2–5 mm wide, margins sparsely spinulose-ciliate, apices apiculate.
Peduncles

10–20 cm.
Ray corollas

intensely yellow to red-orange, laminae obovate, 18–30 mm, apices ± truncate, denticulate.
Disc corollas

6–7 mm.
Phyllaries

erect, oblong-lanceolate, 9–13(–18) mm, apices acute to rounded-obtuse.
Calyculi

of spreading-ascending, linear-subulate bractlets 5–7(–10) mm, apices acute;

Involucres 6–10 mm diam.
Cypselae

15–30 mm, usually hispidulous, rarely glabrous;

pappi 0, or of 2–3 widely divergent awns 1–7 mm.
2n

= 24, 48.

Cosmos sulphureus
Phenology Flowering summer–fall.
Habitat Disturbed sites
Elevation 0–1000 m (0–3300 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AL; AR; CA; CT; DE; FL; GA; IL; LA; MD; MI; MO; NC; NY; OK; PA; SC; TN; TX; VA; Mexico [Introduced in North America; also introduced in West Indies, Central America, South America, Asia, Africa, Pacific Islands]
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Source FNA vol. 21, p. 205.
Parent taxa Asteraceae > tribe Heliantheae > subtribe Coreopsidinae > Cosmos
Sibling taxa
C. bipinnatus, C. caudatus, C. parviflorus
Name authority Cavanilles: Icon. 1: 56, plate 79. (1791)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Fabaceae, Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers