Chocolate flower

Berlandiera incisa Torrey & A. Gray

Plants 10–60(–120) cm. Stems (erect to decumbent) usually branched. Leaves evenly distributed along stems; petiolate; blades oblanceolate or obovate to spatulate, often lyrate, sometimes ± pinnatifid (terminal lobes usually shorter than pinnatifid portions, crenate to irregularly incised), membranous to slightly chartaceous, ultimate margins crenate or entire, faces ± velvety. Heads in corymbiform arrays. Peduncles hairy (some hairs reddish, bulbous-based, wartlike, surpassing white, appressed hairs). Involucres 13–17 mm diam. Ray corollas deep yellow to orange-yellow, abaxial veins (sometimes whole surfaces) red to maroon, laminae 10–14 × 5.5–8 mm. Disc corollas red to maroon (rarely yellow). Cypselae 4.5–6 × 2.7–3.7 mm. 2n = 30.

Flowering nearly year round. Dry, sandy loams, rocky, limestone soils, roadsides, grasslands with mesquite, oak, and juniper; 700–2200 m; Ariz., Colo., Kans., N.Mex., Okla., Tex.; Mexico.

Berlandiera lyrata is cultivated in Arizona. Exceptional specimens that are scapiform (sometimes monocephalic) with mostly undivided leaves and with wartlike hairs on peduncles occur at higher elevations (south-central New Mexico, trans-Pecos Texas, and Nuevo León). They have yellow disc corollas, as do most collections from Chihuahua, Durango, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas.