It's because the tiny, shiny, black seeds of coreopsis look a bit like ticks. It's NOT because these beautiful plants attract or harbor the pesky buggers, or that ticks eat the seeds. Some plants really get a bum steer when it comes to common names! That's why we typically refer to these plants as coreopsis (pronounced core-ee-OP-sis) rather than tickseed. Want to know more about coreopsis?