32+ Beautiful Yellow Flowers With Names and Pictures

Last Updated on May 30, 2023 by Kimberly Crawford

Yellow flowers are hard to miss especially during summer and spring. Having yellow flowers in the garden always brings brightness in the area and exudes excitement, liveness and joy.

If you want to spruce up your gardens or homes with yellow flowers, here are some of the best yellow flower names you can count on.

In this article

Yellow flowers meaning

In general, yellow flowers have strong symbolic connotations in various cultures. In ancient civilizations like the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayas, yellow flowers represent abundance. In Japan, yellow flowers are symbols of royalty and sanctity.

In France, yellow flowers may mean jealousy while in Mexico, yellow flowers are used to honor the dead specifically during Dia de los Muertos.

In a more universal perspective, yellow flowers are acknowledged in the flower language as symbols of deep friendship, joy, pride and success.

32+ Types of yellow flowers

Weeds with yellow flowers

When controlled, weeds with yellow flowers could be used as good ground covers for the garden or dividers for concrete pavers. They do not only add texture but also color because of their small, yellow flowers.

#1. Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

Although invasive and is considered a pesky crop weed, dandelions have a wide range of health benefits. It is edible from its tiny flowers down to its roots. The whole plant is medically acknowledged as beneficial to stimulate appetite and help in digestion. Its flowers are dried for tea and its roots are processed for caffeine.

#2. Silverweed (Potentilla anserina)

It is an edible perennial clustered within the rose family and is known for its wide range of medicinal uses. It is known to be a natural analgesic, astringent and diuretic and is helpful in treating sweaty palms and feet.

Its yellow flowers bloom all through spring on a leafless stalk. It is a favorite of insects and butterflies.

#3. Creeping Buttercup (Ranunculus repens)

This one is a beautiful ground cover as it is low-growing and a prolific creeper. It produces base rosettes where its unique three-parted leaves grow.

It has showy, wedge-shaped, yellow flowers that are either produced in clusters or solitarily in an upright stem. Its flowers bloom all through spring.

Trees with yellow flowers

Be it for urban landscaping or simply as shade trees for the garden or patio, here are some trees with yellow flowers that you should know about.

#4. Golden rain tree

It is also known as varnish tree and pride of India. It is a self-seeding perennial known for its sprays of small, yellow flowers throughout summer up to mid-fall.

After its bloom time, it will produce yellow-orange fruits resembling the flowers of Chinese lanterns. It is planted both as shade tree or a specimen tree.

#5. Sweet Acacia (Acacia smallii)

It is a drought-tolerant tree known for its distinct puffball shaped sunny yellow flowers on a contrast of dark green foliage. It has a long blooming time which is from spring to fall.

It can be cultivated as a shrub or can be grown as tree, nonetheless, it is a good shading tree for many types of landscapes and for various climate types.

#6. Magnolia ‘Butterflies’ tree

It is known as one of the most beautiful and easy to grow yellow magnolias. It is an early bloomer and a pyramidal shrub or tree. It blooms large flowers (5 inches across) that are tulip-shaped with canary yellow color.

It is a profuse bloomer with up to 16 flowers in each branch. Its peak bloom time is mid-summer and it is loved for its lemon-like fragrance.

#7. Sunny Knock Out Rose tree

It is easy to maintain and fast to grow. It is more of a tall shrub than a tree since its maximum height is only 5ft. It is an upright, rounded and compact flowering tree that is perfect for gardens or patios.

It will bloom large and fragrant yellow flowers at the onset of spring. In early spring, its flowers are sunny yellow in color but as it comes to an end, they will turn into creamy-yellow flowers.

Read also: Types of roses

#8. Cassia tree

This one is a popular boulevard tree for city landscaping. It is a canopy tree native to tropical climates and can reach a full height of 6 to 7ft.

It is most notable for its cascading flowers blooming from spring to summer in hues of sunny yellow, pink, white, orange and red color selections. After the blooming season, the tree will produce equally beautiful yellow-green seed pods.

#9. Julia Child Rose Tree

It is one of the most famous yellow rose varieties specifically of the Floribunda rose. It got its name after Julia Child, a world-famous chef because it was its favorite rose variety. It is easy to grow with a self-cleaning habit.

It is notable for its large, ruffled flowers with a butter yellow color and licorice-like scent. It will not grow very tall and is more of a shrub than a tree. Its maximum height is 3ft and it will bloom from summer to early fall.

#10. Tipu (Tipuana Tipu)

It is one of the best shade trees for yards and pavements. It is a heavy bloomer producing clusters of small, yellow flowers throughout spring. It is also notable for its feather-like, blue green foliage which attracts birds and butterflies. It is famous for landscapers because it becomes a natural canopy for the home when it reaches its mature phase.

Bush with yellow flowers

Flowering bushes are used as border and container plants thanks to their profuse blooming habit. If you particularly like yellow blooms, these are the ones that you should check out for their yellow flowers.

#11. Potentilla

It is also called as cinquefoil and it is considered as one of the most popular landscaping bush/shrub. It is notable for its hardiness, tolerance for a wide range of growing conditions and its long bloom time.

It produces tiny, clustered, yellow flowers from spring to early fall. It is a favorite of butterflies and other insects. It is used as a border plant, container plant and is beneficial in erosion control.

#12. Forsythia

It is an early spring bloomer known for its downward-facing, bursting sunny yellow flowers. While it is relatively easy to take care of, it has specific requirements for it to bloom annually. When unpruned after the blooming time, it can become uncontrolled and become invasive. Interestingly, it is a shrub that belongs in the olive family.

#13. Japanese Rose (Kerria japonica)

It is well-known for its toughness and resistance to common diseases and pesky critters. It has high tolerance to changing climates and a wide range of growing conditions.

It has beautiful yellow-green, arching stems accompanied by bulks of golden-yellow flowers (with an uncanny resemblance with chrysanthemums) that bloom through spring.

#14. Witch Hazel

This flower is native to north Atlantic regions that can be grown as shrubs or cultivated further into trees. It has a striking flower appearance with its thin, crumpled and elongated petals that start as pale yellow in the early fall and turns into deeper yellow as it blooms through fall. It is also acknowledged medically for its health benefits specifically in treating an array of skin conditions.

Ground cover with yellow flowers

For lawns, pavers and vacant lots that need some life, here are perfect ground covers with bright yellow flowers.

#15. Yellow Alyssum (Aurinia saxatilis)

It is an herbaceous perennial used mainly as a border plant in spring gardens. It has a creeping habit of about 18inches wide but will become upright (up to a foot) in spring to produce masses of tiny, yellow flowers in a contrast of blue-gray leaves.

Its most popular cultivars are Basket of Gold and Dwarf Golden Tuft. It has a distinct smell but it is not fragrant at all.

#16. Angelina Sedum (Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’)

It is also called Angelina stonecrop or Angelina stone orpine. It is fast-growing, easy to grow groundcover that thrives in sandy soils and is treated like a succulent rather than a flowering plant.

It produces star-shaped, yellow flowers throughout summer. Its foliage also has an interesting display of bright yellow in the summer and turns burgundy in the fall.

#17. Yellow Archangel (Lamiastrum galeobdolon)

It is also called the yellow Lamium or yellow deadnettle. It is an herbaceous perennial and a member of the mint family. It is tolerant to many growing conditions. It gets its name from its tapered leaves that look like wings.

It produces medium-sized, yellow flowers throughout spring. It has beautiful silver-gray leaves that are as much of show-stoppers as its flowers.

Vine with yellow flowers

If you want to spruce up your fences, arbors and trellises for summer and spring, you should check out this vigorous growing vines with yellow colors.

#18. Black Eyed Susan

This creeper has more than 20 varieties ranging from sunny yellow, burnt yellow and golden-brown colors with black centers, hence, the name. It is a profuse bloomer with at least 50 flowers in one plant.

It can be used as ground cover or a climber for trellises and arbors. It will bloom the entire summer up to the first frost of winter.

#19. Carolina Jessamine

It is a beautiful vine used as climbers for arbors and trellises. Because of its prolific climbing habit, it could extend its reach and smother nearby trees and shrubs. Because of this profile, it is also a famous groundcover plant in sloped areas.

It will bloom fragrant, trumpet-shaped, sunny yellow flowers from late winter to early spring.

#20. Golden Tiara clematis

It is also a prolific climber perfect for arbors, trellises and fences. It could also be guided to sprawl on nearby trees. It produces large, lantern-shaped, bright yellow flowers from mid-spring. It is a favorite of birds for its seed heads and it emanates a subtle fragrance throughout its blooming time.

Read also: Types of clematis

#21. Japanese honeysuckle

It is a prized perennial vine in colder climates and considered as an invasive vine in warmer climates because of its fast creeping habit and can sprawl in trees, arbors and trellises.

It is loved for its large and fragrant flowers which bloom in yellow during late spring and change to pink, white and creamy-yellow (all at once) going into fall. It is a favorite of butterflies and hummingbirds.

#22. Bitter melon

It is a vegetable-fruit that grows from vines that is native to subtropical regions (largely in India). Before it produces fruits, it first blooms tiny, yellow flowers with green centers.

The flowers, leaves and fruits of the bitter melon are used as ingredients in many Asian cuisines known to have medicinal benefits specifically in neutralizing sugar levels.

Also read: Types of melons

Cactus with yellow flowers

Not all cacti produce flowers, but when they do, they are truly attention-getters. If you are in for yellow cactus flowers, you should know more about these two.

Also read: Types of cactus, Types of succulents

#23. Prickly pear

It is clustered within the group of Opuntia cacti notable for their wide, flat, pear shaped pads, hence, also known as paddle cactus. Some varieties have prickly bristles but the more popular type has small, prickly dots throughout the pads.

It blooms small flowers in yellow, red and pink color selections in the summer. Its flowers and fruits are considered as edible if cleaned properly.

#24. Leuchtenbergia

It is more popularly known as agave cactus or prism cactus. It is the sole species of its genus. It is a very slow-growing cactus that will only reach 2ft in height at mature phase.

It is a distinguishable cylindrical stem that will grow corky as it ages. From the stem, long, blue-gray tubercles appear. A solitary, medium-sized yellow flower will rest on top of it during summer.

Herbs with yellow flowers

These groups are not only known for their beautiful yellow flowers but also for their vast medicinal properties.

#25. Sunflower (Helianthus sp.)

It is the ultimate summer flower because of its peak blooming time of mid-summer. It has a wide-blooming flower composed of thin and pointed bright yellow petals and brown-yellow, cushion-like center.

It is a symbol of good fortune, lasting happiness and filial love. The sunflower varieties with the brightest yellow colors are Lemon Queen and Giant Sungold.

#26. California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica)

Also called as oriental poppies, these ones are considered as wildflowers because they tend to grow in roadsides and banks even without tending. Albeit being survivals, its bright yellow flowers are delicate and cannot be cut for vases.

Like daylilies, they only bloom in the day and wilt at dusk. It blooms everyday throughout spring and can extend to summer in areas with cooler temperatures.

#27. Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus)

It is a vegetable root, also known as sunchokes, prepared and eaten like potatoes but are used as a substitute for it amongst people who want less carbs. It is hardy and very easy to grow. As a matter of fact, it is said that once you grow one, you will be harvesting it forever. In the spring, it will grow yellow flowers from its tall stalks.

Clover with yellow flowers: Oxalis

It is also known as the yellow wood sorrel, a clover with leaves that are interestingly folded up at the center. It is a prolific plant as it grows year-round. When uncontrolled, it will become invasive in lawns and gardens. It produces clumps of five-petaled, yellow flowers from late summer to spring.

Poisonous yellow flowers

Although relatively poisonous, their yellow flowers will never disappoint.

#29. Daffodil

This flower signals spring, starting from early March to mid-May. It grows from bulbs and blooms into trumpet-shaped flowers with bright yellow color. It is low-growing at only two feet tall and is perfect as ground cover.

It was notable for its exclusively yellow color but through the years, other color selections appeared. It is, however, poisonous to animals and humans when ingested.

#30. Poison parsnip

It is more popularly known as wild parsnip. It is native to Eurasia and part of the carrot/parsley family. It has a striking plant profile with tall, slender stems that produce clusters of tiny yellow flowers, an edible root that is used in herbal medicine for digestive conditions and a sap that will cause skin burns when touched.

Edible yellow flowers

Thinking of yellow flowers on top of your salad bowls? Here are two that should make it on your options’ list.

#31. Daylilies (Hemerocallis)

These perennials are not only known for their great tolerance to many growing conditions but are also sought-after for their wide color selections (that can grow at once when planted in the right conditions).

They can grow and bloom annually with little care, producing yellow, white, red, orange, pink and purple-blue flowers from spring to early fall. They get their name from blooming only in the day and wilting at dusk.

#32. Squash (Cucurbita)

All squash varieties including its cousin zucchini have edible flowers. The squash particularly produces sunny yellow flowers before it develops into fruits. Squash flowers are widely used as ingredients in many soup-base dishes in Asia and in salad mixes in Europe and the Americas.

Conclusion

To conclude, yellow flowers are not just limited to ornamentals, cut stems and flowers for arrangements. It consists of an array of flowers in various classifications from vines, shrubs/trees to medicinal, poisonous and edible flowers.

There is much to say about yellow flowers aside from these but with everything that we have covered, yellow flowers bring more than just a cheerful color to our homes and gardens.

People also search for:

References: