BLACK-EYED SUSAN; YELLOW or OX-EYE DAISY; NIGGER-HEAD; GOLDEN
JERUSALEM; PURPLE CONE-FLOWER
(Rudbeckia hirta) Thistle family
Flower-heads - From 10 to 20 orange-yellow neutral rays around a
conical, dark purplish-brown disk of florets containing both
stamens and pistil. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. tall, hairy, rough, usually
unbranched, often tufted. Leaves: Oblong to lance-shaped, thick,
sparingly notched, rough.
Preferred Habitat - Open sunny places; dry fields.
Flowering Season - May-September.
Distribution - Ontario and the Northwest Territory south to
Colorado and the Gulf States.
So very many weeds having come to our Eastern shores from Europe,
and marched farther and farther west year by year, it is but fair
that black-eyed Susan, a native of Western clover fields, should
travel toward the Atlantic in bundles of hay whenever she gets
the chance, to repay Eastern farmers in their own coin. Do these
gorgeous heads know that all our showy rudbeckias - some with
orange red at the base of their ray florets - have become prime
favorites of late years in European gardens, so offering them
still another chance to overrun the Old World, to which so much
American hay is shipped? Thrifty farmers may decry the
importation into their mowing lots, but there is a glory to the
cone-flower beside which the glitter of a gold coin fades into
paltry nothingness.
Pages:
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834