To check the seeds, remove any disk flowers that sit on top of the sunflower seeds. According to Henry, disk flowers look like mini flower heads and house both male and female reproductive parts ...

which make up the sunflower’s characteristic halo of petals, and disc flowers that fill the inner ring of the flower head. The woolly devil follows this plan in miniature: it sports two or three ...

It's in the sunflower family, yet looks nothing like your classic yellow-and-black petaled disk. An article published in the peer-reviewed botanical journal PhytoKeys this February first described ...