Are you talking about tithonia?

I find tithonia to be "iffy", too - I've had the same experience. I absolutely loved it the year I had it - drew tons of monarchs - but my efforts to start it since then have been pretty much failures.

yes, the flower i meant is tithonia torch, mexican sunflower. i had outstanding germination last year; actually two years in a row. i had so many plants i didn't know what to do with them all. i went to the burpee seed site and it was really interesting -- they had a customer comment posted under tithonia that was so very, very identical to my complaint it was unbelievable. i added a post there too -- but, of course, that still doesn't give me an answer.....

If the variety you grew was hybrid, the seed you collected could have been infertile. But if you bought new packs of seeds from the company, then there is a mystery somewhere here. I only grew them two years, from seed packets, but they sprouted easily and were beautiful for maybe 8 weeks, but unfortunately here in Texas it gets hot and humid and they took powdery mildew and I had to give up on them.