Blackeyed susan

Scientific Name:  Rudbeckia hirta
Common Name:  Blackeyed susan

Morphological Characteristics:

Habit- native warm season perennial forb reaching 1 to 3 feet tall; flowers May to September; reproduces by seed and rootstock
Leaves- aternate, simple, longer than broad, base subpetiolar to nearly sessile, margins entire to obscurely toothed
Flowers- in heads, solitary at end of a long peduncle; peduncles 1 ½ to 12 inches long; ray flowers 12 – 20 yellow or orange in color, disk flowers brown
Fruit- achenes, 4-angled in cross section, sides flat to convex
Other- stems, leaves and calyx hirsute to hispid
Habitat and Range: dry plains and prairies; disturbed sites; occurs throughout Texas except the Trans-Pecos region

Conservation Use:

Why collect this plant? Texas Plant Materials Centers have identified this plant as having potential benefits to the following conservation practice standards: 645 Upland Wildlife Habitat Management; 342 Critical Area Planting; 562 Recreation Area Improvement; 550 Range Planting. Your assistance in collecting this plant helps support the NRCS conservation practice standards which are employed daily to conserve the natural resources of Texas!

Centers Requesting Seed:

East Texas Plant Materials Center
E. Kika de la Garza Plant Material Center

How to Collect Seed

1. Identify native plant stands in your area. You can go to the following websites for helpful photos http://plants.usda.gov or http://www.noble.org/imagegallery/index.html or www.wildflower.org
   
2. Determine if seed is mature. Mature seed is typically dry and will easily separate from the seed head.
   
3. Hand strip mature seed by grasping the bottom of the seed head then gently pulling away from the base of the plant. Deposit seed in a brown paper sack. Collect seed from a minimum of 30 to 50 plants.
   
4. Label each collection as it is made so collections do not get mixed up. Information required includes: Collector’s name, number of plants collected, location (parish, city, highway, GPS coordinates), site description (soil type, slope, plants growing in association).
   
5. Complete NRCS-ECS-580; Plant Collection Information Form and mail with collected to the NRCS Plant Materials Center requesting the species.

Refer to the Plant Material Collection Guide for more information on making plant collections.

Helpful Tips

Look for superior plants that display differences in color, height, or forage abundance and record
observations. Differences in growing site or location should be made into separate collections if they are separated by more than 1 mile between sites.

Photos:

Blackeyed susan

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NRCS Species for 2007 Plant Collections- Blackeyed susan (PDF; 107 KB)