Blanket Flower (SPC Florida Plants )

Blanket Flower

Gaillardia pulchella

Summary ²

The blanket flower forms, 12- to 24-inch-tall, rounded clumps of soft, hairy, divided leaves and single, semi-double, or double flowers held on long stems above the foliage. All leaves are simple. The plant usually begins as a rosette with very hairy, multi-lobed leaves, much like dandelions. The rosette expands and produces long stems that will eventually be topped by a single composite flower. The leaves at the bottom of the stems are shaped lanceolate to oblanceolate with lobed or toothed edges and tapering to a petiole. The leaves on the upper stem closest to the flower are spatulate in shape, with toothed or entire margins, and sessile, having no petiole, and often clasping. The leaves alternate on the stem and are hairy. The leaves become increasingly smaller from the rosette to the upper stem. The lower leaves are typically 5 x 0.75 inch. The upper leaves commonly measure 1.5 x 0.33 inches. The flower is a showy composite inflorescence consisting of many ray and disk florets. Individual flowers are 1 to 3.0 inches wide on long slender pedicels from 18 to 28 inches long. The ray florets are the outer longer florets and develop simultaneously with the inner disk florets. A ray floret consists of three petals that are fused together giving a fringed appearance to the flower. Ray petals are most often reddish-purple or orange-red with yellow tips, but can also be solid orange, yellow, pink and rarely white. The center disk florets are reddish-purple, orange-red or yellow. Difference in colors and variations in petal shapes are a result of natural hybridization. Each floret produces a single fruit (an achene) with a single seed, and there are more disk florets than ray florets in each flower. Flowering peaks from April into June, depending on the time of germination. At its optimum, a typical plant will have as many as 35 flowers in simultaneous bloom and is approximately 25 inches tall and about as wide. Blanket flower is native in all of Florida, much of the southeast and south-central states. It is a common dune and coastal scrub plant. It can be found growing at roadsides, in drainage ditch slopes and in open fields.

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Range Map

iNat Map

Leaf characteristics	Pubescent
Leaf shape	Lanceolate, Oblanceolate
Leaf type	Simple
Flowers	Pink, Purple, Yellow, Orange
Leaf arrangement	Alternate
Ecosystem	Interior uplands

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