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United States / Grow / common sunflower

common sunflower (Helianthus annuus)
Photo: (c) Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

common sunflower

Helianthus annuus · Asteraceae · all Helianthus records · Wikipedia

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Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Helianthus annuus keeps limited evidence. Then 2 ecological invasive reports on Helianthus annuus. This is not one slogan — Helianthus annuus. The distinctive work on Helianthus annuus is holding those facts together. limited evidence does not replace 2 ecological invasive reports on Helianthus annuus.

native and introduced range both cited joins that picture on Helianthus annuus.

Use evidence on Helianthus annuus. Use range on Helianthus annuus. The jumps stay with Helianthus annuus.

Form
perennial
Mature height
~9 ft
Water need
moderate
Rated in
New Zealand
Uses
ornamental
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Evidence regions
New Zealand

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Native range
Current cited native range in AZ, CA, NV.
Introduced / established
47 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Only uncertain or inapplicable hardiness rows are cited; no primary zone is projected.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Reported invasive here
2 ecological invasive reports.
How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

3

exact source areas

Current introduced

47

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

3 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Arizona (AZ)
  • California (CA)
  • Nevada (NV)
47 introduced source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Alaska (AK)
  • Alabama (AL)
  • Arkansas (AR)
  • Colorado (CO)
  • Connecticut (CT)
  • District of Columbia (DC)
  • Delaware (DE)
  • Florida (FL)
  • Georgia (GA)
  • Iowa (IA)
  • Idaho (ID)
  • Illinois (IL)
  • Indiana (IN)
  • Kansas (KS)
  • Kentucky (KY)
  • Louisiana (LA)
  • Massachusetts (MA)
  • Maryland (MD)
  • Maine (ME)
  • Michigan (MI)
  • Minnesota (MN)
  • Missouri (MO)
  • Mississippi (MS)
  • Montana (MT)
  • North Carolina (NC)
  • North Dakota (ND)
  • Nebraska (NE)
  • New Hampshire (NH)
  • New Jersey (NJ)
  • New Mexico (NM)
  • New York (NY)
  • Ohio (OH)
  • Oklahoma (OK)
  • Oregon (OR)
  • Pennsylvania (PA)
  • Rhode I. (RI)
  • South Carolina (SC)
  • South Dakota (SD)
  • Tennessee (TN)
  • Texas (TX)
  • Utah (UT)
  • Virginia (VA)
  • Vermont (VT)
  • Washington (WA)
  • Wisconsin (WI)
  • West Virginia (WV)
  • Wyoming (WY)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Recommends (1)

Same genus in the directory · the Helianthus group page

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Helianthus annuus (Common sunflower). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/helianthus-annuus/. Last verified 2026-08-23.