When people think about wildflowers we also tend to think spring time. Spring is when a lot of flowers bloom, but there are plenty of them that bloom in the fall as well. One of my favorites is the camphorweed. In this area, it starts to bloom in late August into September and October. It produces a very pretty, bright yellow flower with a noticeable camphor smell. Each plant will have quite a few flowers, and the plants tend to grow in clusters, so they can be quite striking. They like our well drained, sandy soil, so they are common in wild areas of Florida.

I have quite a few of these plants in my wildflower patches, and I not only love the gorgeous flowers, but I enjoy the butterflies that the flowers attract. The camphor odor seems to make them a favorite while they are blooming. I’m not big on plant care, so the ones I have on my property are just in the wildflower patches and in the woods, but some folks do use these plants as ornamentals, especially in butterfly gardens. They do have a tendency to get weedy looking (mine definitely do), but if kept trimmed up, they are quite pretty.

At the end of fall, the flowers go to seed and form a round poof of seeds (similar to dandelions) that are dispersed by wildlife and the wind. In some regions the plants die back, but in warm places like ours, they just go dormant and return in the spring.