Elegant Zinnia

Zinnia elegans

"Zinnia elegans" is an annual flowering plant in the daisy family Asteraceae. It is native to Mexico but grown as an ornamental in many places and naturalised in several places, including scattered locations in South and Central America, the West Indies, the United States, Australia, and Italy.
Zinnia - Zinnia elegans Habitat: Garden This plant is naturalized, but not native Fall,Geotagged,United States,Zinnia elegans,zinnia

Appearance

The uncultivated plant grows to about 1,340 cm in height. It has solitary flower heads about 5 cm across. The purple ray florets surround black and yellow discs. The lanceolate leaves are opposite the flower heads. Flowering occurs during the summer months.
Zinnia - Zinnia elegans Too bad this photo wasn't sharper because the blooming flower was so cool. Habitat: Rural garden https://www.jungledragon.com/image/146986/zinnia_-_zinnia_elegans.html https://www.jungledragon.com/image/146987/zinnia_-_zinnia_elegans.html https://www.jungledragon.com/image/146988/zinnia_-_zinnia_elegans.html https://www.jungledragon.com/image/146989/zinnia_-_zinnia_elegans.html Elegant Zinnia,Fall,Geotagged,United States,Zinnia elegans,zinnia

Evolution

The species was first collected in 1789 at Tixtla, Guerrero, by Sessé and Mociño. It was formally described as "Zinnia violacea" by Cavanilles in 1791. Jacquin described it again in 1792 as "Zinnia elegans", which was the name that Sessé and Moçiño had used in their manuscript of "Plantae Novae Hispaniae", which was not published until 1890. The genus was named by Carl von Linné after the German botanist Johann Gottfried Zinn, who described the species now known as "Zinnia peruviana" in 1757 as "Rudbeckia foliis oppositis hirsutis ovato-acutis, calyce imbricatus, radii petalis pistillatis". Linné realised that it was not a "Rudbeckia".

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.