Tall Coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata)
- Family: Aster (Asteraceae)
- Flowering: July-September.
- Field Marks: This nearly smooth species has leaves divided into 5 or 7 lobes and flower heads with a yellow center.
- Habitat: Along streams, around lakes, in sloughs.
- Habit: Coarse perennial herb with thickened rootstocks.
- Stems: Erect, branched, smooth, sometimes glaucous, up to 10 feet tall.
- Leaves: Alternate, usually pinnately divided into 3 to 7 coarsely toothed segments, or the uppermost sometimes undivided, smooth or sometimes hairy, very large.
- Flowers: Yellow, crowded together into heads, the heads up to 3 1/2 inches across, subtended by green, spreading or downward-pointing leaf-like bracts; flowers of 2 kinds: the outer ray-like, drooping, up to 2 1/2 inches long; the inner tubular, forming a central rounded disk up to 1 inch across.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 5, united, some of them forming flat rays, others forming tubular disk flowers.
- Stamens: 5.
- Pistils: Ovary inferior.
- Fruits: Achenes flattened or 4-sided, smooth, up to 1/3 inch long, with a few teeth at the tip.
- Notes: This species, sometimes grown as a garden ornamental, is also known as goldenglow.
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