Helianthus porteri is a species of sunflower known by the common names Porter's sunflower, Stone Mountain daisyScott Ranger's Nature Notes http://scottranger.com/helianthus-porteri-confederate-daisy.html and Confederate daisy. The term "daisy" is imprecise because the species is a sunflower (Helianthus) rather than a daisy (Bellis and related genera). Likewise, although the plant grows on Stone Mountain, GA, its range extends well beyond. The connection to the Confederacy is through Stone Mountain which contains a confederate monument, although the connection is tenuous as the species was named before the Civil War in 1849 by Harvard botanist Asa Gray in honor of Thomas Conrad Porter, a Pennsylvanian minister and botanist who collected the plant in Georgia. Gray initially named the plant Rudbeckia porteri, later changed to Helianthus in 1998 by John F. Pruski.
The species is native to the southeastern United States, including Alabama and Georgia, but has been introduced to granite outcrop areas in North Carolina as an aggressive weed.Biota of North America Program 2014 county distribution mapWeakley AS. 2015. Flora of the southern and mid‐Atlantic states. University of North Carolina Herbarium, North Carolina Botanical Garden, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. [WWW document] URL http://www.herbarium.unc.edu/flora.htm Helianthus porteri grows on thin soils on and around flat rock granite and gneiss outcrops.Scott Ranger's Nature Notes http://scottranger.com/helianthus-porteri-confederate-daisy.html It is an annual herb up to 100 cm (40 inches) tall. One plant usually produces 5 or more flower heads, each containing 7 or 8 yellow ray florets surrounding 30 or more yellow disc florets.Flora of North America, Helianthus porteri (A. Gray) Pruski, 1998. Confederate daisy Blake, Sydney Fay 1918. Contributions from the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University 54: 114–115, as Viguiera porteri
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photo of herbarium specimen at Missouri Botanical Garden, collected in Georgia in 1846, isotype of Rudbeckia porteri/Viguiera porteri/Helianthus porteri Scott D. Gevaert, Jennifer R. Mandel, John M. Burke, and Lisa A. Donovan. 2013. High Genetic Diversity and Low Population Structure in Porter’s Sunflower (Helianthus porteri). Journal of Heredity 2013:104(3):407–415 doi:10.1093/jhered/est009 Plant Life of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit by Jim Allison Alabama Plant Atlas, Helianthus porteri