Bracteantha Heliana Gold - Strawflower

The Bracteantha Heliana Gold is a compact and bushy hybrid everlasting selection, with a very neat appearance, that offers a particularly long-lasting intense yellow flowering, compensating for the modest size of its flowers. It is a annual plant that is remarkably generous, forming a beautiful, highly flowered cushion for almost 5 months without the need to remove faded flowers. Whether in border beds or in pots, its radiant flowers enliven any setting. They are also perfect for dried flower arrangements.

The Bracteantha Heliana Gold is a very recent horticultural creation, a hybrid that does not produce seeds but instead devotes all its energy to flowering. It is an annual plant of the Asteraceae family: it has flowers organized in heads, but the heads of the everlasting are distinguished from those of daisies and centaureas by the absence of ray florets or petals, which are replaced by scaly, coloured, and shiny bracts. This characteristic allows the inflorescences to last a long time once they are dry, as the bracts do not 'wilt' like petals do. The Heliana Gold selection is a plant with an upright habit, compact and reaching an average height of 35 cm when in flower, with a width of 20-25 cm (8-10in). Its rough stems are branched, adorned with simple, lanceolate, dark green, slightly villous leaves measuring 5 to 7 cm (2 to 3in) in length. The overall plant forms a dense tuft. Flowering is continuous from summer to autumn, typically from June to October. It is nectar-rich and highly visited by butterflies. The Heliana Gold heads measure between 2 and 3 cm (1in) in diameter.