You can see the hairs on the filaments in the first photo you linked to Christine ..

http://chalk.richmond.edu/flor...

The leaves in the second link don't show the deep teeth, they look entire or almost.

And that bloom looks right except that the stamens are yellow lower down than mine and mine has no hairs.

The leaves are variable, I think.

http://chalk.richmond.edu/flor...

Are you sure you don't see any hairs Porkpal? It seems so close.

One thing is for certain...when you do finally have a positive ID @porkpal, You have GOT to upload your pictures and info to the plant database.

I will have a few other people look for the elusive hairs; my eyesight is not the best...

The hairs might not be visually evident by the naked eye. The only picture where the hairs are evident, is a macro photo. Maybe find someone with a macro camera or a microscope! I know I've had that problem in the past, trying to ID. It's amazing what you can see once you get a good close up look.

One day I used a magnifying glass held in front of the camera and managed to set clear enough images. http://garden.org/ideas/view/g...

Greene, I am impressed with that method! I've never been able to accomplish it though... not sure what I did wrong. I'll have to go look at your instructions and try again.

It helps if you have three hands, a willing assistant or if you can clamp the lens in place while you focus the camera.

I don't have that good a camera, but there are folks around with better magnifying glasses and vision. I'll work on that.

My dad gave me one of these loupes and I absolutely love it! It is great for seeing tiny plant details and they are really cheap on Amazon. Using this, I can actually look at Begonia seeds and tell if they look viable or not.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007GJJRZC/

(It's not high quality optics, of course, but it works and is cheap.)

porkpal said:I don't have that good a camera, but there are folks around with better magnifying glasses and vision. I'll work on that.

Do you have a flatbed scanner? That may get a good enough detailed close-up. Another alternative is a magnifier app if you have a smartphone.

I'm pretty low-tech here, but on closer examination I can see fuzz on the lower part of the stamens, however, I can see the same fuzz on the stems and leaves too. Does that count as hairs?

Yes, I believe it does.

We just returned from a walk along the coast in the south of France; I was excited to find what looked pretty much like your mystery plant:




I brought back a sprig, just in case. But on reading the posts since I last looked, it seems that my discovery doesn't solve your mystery; the leaves on the plant I found are waxy, not hairy...

I think we have to go back and look at the backs of the flowers where you can see the petals appear to narrow for some distance towards the base, they don't do that on Viguiera dentata.

http://swbiodiversity.org/sein...

Check the flowers on Bidens torta, the leaves don't match but could this be a hybrid garden escapee or a species of Bidens?

http://en.hortipedia.com/wiki/...

Check the flowers and seeds forming on the small photo ..

http://the.honoluluadvertiser....

The leaves of Bidens torta on the following photo are not far off, but they look different to the other photos I found. I think this is a Biden species, note how the petals narrow towards the base.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/...

ko'oko'olau

https://www.google.co.uk/searc...

I looked at those yesterday, don't recall now but they didn't match.

A very good way to tell for certain will be the seeds/pods.

The petal form is definitely more like the Bidens, but as you say, the leaves are not. Due to all the contradictions everyone has encountered, I have often wondered whether it is some sort of unrecorded hybrid. Is that possible?

The recent rain Has knocked off all the seeds. I will get a picture of the seeds as soon as more form.