Coreopsis

Tickweed. Otherwise known as the sweatflower, or the teaflower, in the Northeastern States of America. Yellow, and cheerful, and possessed of a strong tea-like scent. In my school, ubiquitously in flower in the last few days of school: girls put them in their hair, boys...oh, whatever had a buttonhole...Teachers inevitably got huge bouquets. In sentiment: the end of a good year together, in practicality, it smelled stronger than we did.

There is a reason that Judy Collins featured them on her "Wildflowers" album: it's the essence of early summer.(Also known as the mystery condition in the "surgeon" fantasy in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". It just has that sound....and Mrs. E. B. White was such a gardener...)

Co`re*op"sis (k?`r?-?p"s?s), n. [NL., fr. GR. bug + appearance.] Bot.

A genus of herbaceous composite plants, having the achenes two-horned and remotely resembling some insect; tickseed. C. tinctoria, of the Western plains, the commonest plant of the genus, has been used in dyeing.

© Webster 1913.