Day 195: Stiff-Haired Sunflower

So little is in bloom along Piney Woods Church Road this time of year.  I glimpsed one Horse Nettle, and a few bedraggled Daisy Fleabanes.  But then, along the woodland edge near Rico Road, I noticed one bright yellow eight-petaled flower.  It is a sunflower, a member of the genus Helianthus, and quite possibly the Stiff-Haired Sunflower(Helianthus hirsutus).  To make the identification a bit more difficult, there are actually twenty-eight different species of Helianthus native to Georgia!  No matter its species, it was a burst of sunlight on my walk, a bit of yellow in a sea of green.