That purple rim around the outside was pretty distinctive, so I figured I could do a reverse image search and find out what it was. I figured it was probably a seedling from some landscape tree I’ve gotten wood chips from; that’s happened before.
But Google seems to think it’s a sunflower seedling. And it’s right next to my sunchoke patch. And I deliberately chose sunchoke cultivars to get ones that could flower and make true seeds. I didn’t sow any of those seeds into the pathway, but the wind certainly could have tossed a few there, and I collected a lot of those seeds from that patch last fall.
Sunchokes are in the same genus as sunflowers, so it’s certainly possible the cotyledons look the same.
But on the other hand . . . I do have neighbors who grow sunflowers, so it’s possible bird could’ve dropped a sunflower seed there. A sunchoke seedling seems way more likely, but if that’s not what sunchoke seedlings look like, then a sunflower is loosely possible.
So, for anyone who’s ever grown sunchokes from seeds . . . is that what the cotyledons look like? Do I have a sunchoke seedling?
My first thought was sunflower seedling, but I’ve never seen a sunchoke seedling so don’t know how different they look. My sunchokes had seeds last year so I scattered them around. But I only have one variety, so I’m not sure the seeds will be viable.
Your sunchokes made seeds, even though you only had one variety? Wow, that’s very surprising! When I only had one type, I’d get flowers all right, but no seeds. If you got seeds, my guess would be that you either have a self-fertile variety (do any exist?) or you have more than one genotype in your population, they just happen to have the same phenotype.
Did all of your sunchokes come from the same original tuber? Or did you get multiple tubers from your original source? If you got multiple tubers from your original source, it’s possible they had more than one genotype all mixed up together and didn’t notice because they were phenotypically similar and therefore looked the same.
Multiple tubers from the same source. She does have a number of different varieties, so it’s possible they were mixed.
I’m pretty sure they were seeds I found in the dead flower heads. Looked like long thin greyish sunflower seeds. Maybe they were just empty husks and not viable. I’ll be interested to see if anything comes up.
Oh my! That’s exactly what mine looked like! I should have saved some to do a germination test. I didn’t even plant them properly, just scattered them around!
I’ll report back if I see any seedlings. Sunflowers are a major crop in this region. Though no one’s growing any nearby, a bird might deposit some. So there’s a possibility any interesting looking seedlings might be sunflower. The flower will make that obvious!
That answers my question, then: my mysterious pathway volunteer is almost certainly a sunflower seedling. I found a brand new second one today that still had the seed case on the cotyledons, and that one was definitely a sunflower seedling: the seed case was black and white spotted, which looked exactly like the seeds from the sunflower my neighbor grew last year.
So . . . yay! Thank you, Joseph! Now I know for sure!
I’m a bit sad that they’re sunflower seedlings, not sunchokes, but I’ll transplant them both out of my pathway and into a place where I don’t mind having sunflowers and let them grow there.
