Coneflower

Scientific Name:
Echinacea purpurea
Echinacea atrorubens
Echinacea pallida
Echinacea angustifolia

Common Name:
Purple coneflower
Pale Echinacea
Blacksamson

Morphological Characteristics:

Habit- native warm season perennial forb reaching 1 to 4 feet tall; flowers May to June; reproduces by seed and rootstock
Leaves- alternate, simple, entire or sub entire, narrowly lanceolate to oblong or ovate, 3-5 promenade veins
Flowers- in heads, solitary at end of a long peduncle; ray flowers 10-14 purple, pink or red in color, disk flowers with stiff, sharp-pointed brownish to dark reddish purple scales
Fruit- achenes, acutely 4-angled in cross section
Other- stems slender rough pubescent, leaves hirsute 3 to 8 inches long

Habitat and Range: dry plains and prairies; disturbed sites; sandy, gravelly, or limestone soils 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!

Center Requesting Seed:

East Texas Plant Materials Center

How to Collect Seed

1. Identify native plant stands in your area. You can go to the following websites for helpful photos http://www.plants.usda.gov, 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, and plants growing in association).
5. Complete NRCS-ECS-580; Plant Collection Information Form and mail with collected seeds 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:

Coneflower

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NRCS Species for 2007 Plant Collections - Echinacea Sp. (PDF; 152 KB)