The Common Zinnia, also known as Youth-and-Old-Age, grows around 75 centimetres tall and bears Daisy-like flowers, originally with purple petals (fig.).

Those petals surround a deep wine to black centre, which in turn is surrounded by stamens that consist of deep maroon filaments with bright yellow anthers. However, many other cultivars now exist, with varying sizes and forms, as well as petal colours, that range from creamy and white, through bronze, orange and apricot, to rose, pink and red, as well as various hues of purple.