Chocolate daisy, Chocolate flower, Lyreleaf greeneyes, Green-Eyed lyre leaf Berlandiera lyrata Benth.

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Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
4801 La Crosse Avenue
Austin, Texas 78739

Phone: 512.232.0100

Asteraceae (Aster Family)
USDA Symbol: BELY
USDA Native Status: Native to U.S.
Lyre-leaf greeneyes or chocolate flower is a velvety-leaved, 1-2 ft. perennial. Its mounded, coarse, gray-green foliage has a chocolate aroma. A leafy plant, often with many short branches at base and longer, leaning branches ending in leafless stalks topped by flower heads with yellow rays surrounding a maroon central disk. The numerous, daisy-like blossoms are 2 in. across with yellow rays and a maroon center. These flowers open in the morning and droop in the heat of day. The cup-like seedheads which follow are also attractive.

The genus name honors Jean-Louis Berlandier (1805-1851), a French-Swiss physician who collected plants in northern Mexico and Texas in the early 1800s. A chocolate odor may be detected when the rays are plucked from the flower head.

© 2012 Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center