Topeka ? They dot the prairies, gold and brown, surviving Plains winters to bloom in the summer.

They’ve been so long associated with Kansas that it was known as “the Sunflower State,” long before legislators decided the state needed Helianthus as an official state flower.

The sunflower gained its symbolic status 100 years ago, when a state law took effect with the start of June 1903.

It has been a familiar emblem for state government and souvenirs since, though the wild sunflower is frequently confused with its large-centered, grown-for-seed domestic cousin.

“It’s a very popular flower, plus it’s very beautiful,” said the Rev. Richard Taylor, a retired Methodist minister who successfully sought adoption earlier this year of a Senate resolution praising the sunflower.

The sunflower family is a large one, including black-eyed Susans, goat’s beards, wave-leaf thistles, yarrows and Western fleabanes.

There are even different varieties of Helianthus across the prairie landscape, most notably the Helianthus annus, the common sunflower, which generally blooms from July through September and can grow 10 feet tall.

Native vs. domestic

The wild sunflower can be distinguished from its domestic cousin fairly easily.

A wild sunflower blooms along Stull Road near Lawrence. The wild sunflower, which is smaller than its domestic counterpart, became Kansas' official flower 100 years ago.

The wild variety is symmetrical by thirds, the diameter of its center roughly the same length as the petals on each side. The domestic sunflower has an unnatural, genetically engineered, huge center.

The 1903 law praised the wild native sunflower as hardy and conspicuous, ideal for artistic reproduction, a flower a child could draw or a someone could render in silk.

The law further declared the wild sunflower “full of the life and glory of the past, the pride of the present, and richly emblematic of the majesty of a golden future.”

A generation later, people were still sounding the sunflower’s praises.

In 1936, Kansas Gov. Alf Landon was the Republican nominee for president, and his followers naturally adopted the sunflower as his symbol.

The Tulsa, Okla., Tribune declared that Landon’s candidacy served to “awaken the American people to the radiant beauty of the sunflower,” reporting that department stores in big cities were selling sunflower buttons for prices ranging from 5 cents to $5.

“It is a flower full of poetry all its own,” the newspaper said. “No flower could so fittingly represent the spirit of American democracy because it lives in the light, seeks the light and is guided by the light.”

‘Rugged individualist’

In Boise, the Idaho Stateman that year praised the sunflower for its ability to survive blizzards, strong sun, droughts and dust storms, describing it as “a rugged individualist.”

“You are ours,” the newspaper continued. “You have dignity and grace and courage and determination. You are friendly. You are an inspiration.”

Of course, Landon needed more than inspiration against popular Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt and lost the race overwhelmingly. Still, he became an elder GOP stateman, dying in 1987 at age 100.

And sunflowers have not been so revered that farmers always allowed them to thrive in their fields. Taylor, who grew up on a farm near Abilene, recalls chopping them out of the corn as a boy.

“It’s a weed if it’s in a cornfield,” he joked.

Taylor, an amateur historian and former lobbyist against gambling and looser liquor laws, has a bigger concern when it comes to sunflowers. He worries the state flower is being confused with the domestic sunflower.

He has evidence, too. In last year’s state “Getaway Guide,” no fewer than six advertisements — including one on the back cover — featured the domestic sunflower.

Four years ago, Taylor took the Department of Revenue to task when it produced a new design for personal license plates that featured the domestic sunflower, rather than the state flower. Months later, the department unveiled a design with the correct flower.