Inula hookeri (Hooker’s inula)

The Inula genus is a member of the sprawling aster family. Inula hookeri—Hooker’s inula—is named for the eminent botanist Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker. Inulin, found in the roots of these plants, is used as a substitute sweetener for diabetics. Inula is native to Europe, Asia, and Africa, and not found in the wild in North America.

Plants: Growing in dense colonies like stands of daisies, these inulas reach 2½′ (75 cm) in height.

Flowers: Stems are covered with soft hairs and topped by yellow flowers up to 3″ (8 cm) around. Each flowerhead is composed of a darker yellow central disk flower and many narrow ray flowers. Often the rays are so narrow that they look shaggy, like windblown hair. Flowers bloom from July to October.

Habitats: In its native Himalayas, India, Myanmar, and China, this species appears in moist open habitats at elevations between 1.5–2.2 mi (2.4–3.6 km).

Kingdom	Plantae	Plants, but not fungi, lichens, or algae (from Stearn's Botanical Latin)
Subkingdom	Tracheobionta	Vascular plants—plants with a “circulatory system” for delivering water and nutrients
Division	Magnoliophyta	Flowering plants, also known as angiosperms
Class	Magnoliopsida	Dicotyledons—plants with two initial seed leaves
Subclass	Asteridae	A large class that encompasses asters
Order	Asterales	Flowering plants with a central disk flower and surrounding petals, like daisies
Family	Asteraceae	The aster family, which also includes daisies and sunflowers; from the Greek ἀστήρ, “star,” for the star-shaped flowers
Genus	Inula	A Latin name for a plant called elecampane which is itself a corruption of the ante-Linnaean name Enula campana, so called from its growing wild in Campania. This was an ancient herb described by both Pliny and Dioscorides
Species	hookeri	Named for Sir William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865), professor of botany and director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in the mid 19th century

About plant names...