mitch brant wrote:#1 Seems correct.
#2 Hard to say. There's only one flower. There are many yellow Sunflower species and they can be difficult to identify. JA typically has 10-20 ray florets per flower. Was that flower typical of the group of plants? It does have hairy leaves and stems like JA, but the leaves shown are too young to make a possible match. One way to identify JA is to dig it up and look for the tubers.
Thanks for your help Mitch! I was guessing JA because of the reddish color on the stem and the hair, but you nailed it about the florets. This flower was typical of the plants and I don't think any of them had 10-20 florets. I will get better pictures the next time I go out and give an update.