Front Porch Tales with Barbara Belding Gibson. Come on, pull up a rocking chair, grab a glass of iced tea and let's visit a while. Maximilian Sunflowers The Wildflower Series The Maximilian Sunflower is a beautiful sight along our roadsides this time of year. Identifying just which plant is called the Maximilian can be very confusing. But most references I have found say the blooms grow around tall spikes. And most of the accompanying photos show the bloom growing off the main flower stalk on a very short stem. So it appears that the flowers are actually growing on the main stem along the upper 2/3 of the stem. In fact, one reference says the blooms are "stacked" along the upper 2/3 of the stem. However we were in a state park in NW Texas year before last and were told by the park ranger that the sunflowers we could see out the window were Maximilian. To me those looked like the regular, normal, run-of-the-mill sunflowers. I suppose we could have borrowed a shovel and dug one up to tell for sure. But I suspect the ranger would have been more than slightly miffed at us. Two main differences between sunflowers as found in all the source books I have searched are that other sunflowers are annuals whereas the Maximilian is a perennial and the Maximilian grows from a thick rhizome. And, evidently, if one can find a rhizome that is not too woody, it is not only edible but even tasty. The plant does produce seed and can be grown from them if you can find any left after the birds and deer finish dining on them. But, if allowed to live, the plants gradually form large colonies because of the spreading of the rhizome underground. In fact, the plants can become pests because of this spreading nature. Evidently the Maximilian Sunflower almost became extinct before ranchers built fences and modern roads were built. Cattle and deer found the plants so desirable that they hunted them out and slowly but surely were wiping out all the colonies. Now, with the advent of protected roadsides, the plants are making a comeback. Of course deer can still get to them, but evidently the plants are able to withstand the deer attack. Maybe partially because birds help spread the seed. Why the name Maximilian? These beautiful flowers were named for Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied (September 23, 1782 - February 3, 1867), a German explorer, ethnologist and naturalist. In 1832 he traveled to the Great Plains accompanied by the Swiss painter Karl Bodmer. These two talented men studied the culture of many of the native American tribes they encountered and made notes and drawings of native wildlife and plant life. Bodmer's watercolor paintings are considered among the most accurate and informative ever made of the plains tribes they studied. When the book, Reise in das Innere Nord-Amerikas was published by these two men in 1840, many of Bodmer's paintings were adapted as hand-colored engravings to illustrate the book. So, when you see the bright yellow flowers standing tall on the roadside, take a minute to see if they are Maximilian Sunflowers.