Echinacea at Eye Level

Summer is here, and the echinacea is in bloom. There are all sorts of hybrids available, but if you have room, the species is very interesting.

The echinacea has a distinctly blue cast next to the deadheaded foxglove penstemon, which are a bright green. The lawn behind the penstemon is beginning to look water stressed—the color is shifting towards a bluer green. Behind the lawn, a bed of myrtle is visible. Its foliage is approximately the same color as the Echinacea. — The rain garden Echinacea purpurea is over five feet tall, loaded with flower buds, and just starting to bloom. Photographed July 3, 2018.

These are tall plants—over five feet—they really are at eye level. I have hybrids with deeper pink petals that I never realized were also dwarfed. While these are stiff, unfloppy plants, there is a lot of visual movement because of the noodly leaves nearest the flowerheads, and the flowerheads themselves.

Echinacea flowers showing several stages of flower development, including a relatively tiny green bud that is not yet open, several with all-green interiors, and others with interiors shading from green to brown. As the petals lengthen out from the perimeter, they start at a greenish white that gradually turns to pink. The fully developed flowerhead has medium pink semi-pendulous petals, and a big spiny disc center that is mostly orange, but still brown in the center. Four tiny bright yellow male flowers are visible near the front edge of the disc. — An Echinacea purpurea flower, with petals somewhat more pendulous than the plant in the previous photograph, surrounded by several immature flowerheads that are beginning to show a rim of petals. Photographed July 5, 2018.

The immature flowerheads have scores of flower buds. As the flower buds develop, the immature flowerhead goes from concave to convex. The disc flowers look like one of those pin impression toys, but in this case the pins are clumping in the center to look like the pin impression of a simple flower. The ray flowers start putting out what look like petals.

As the disc center becomes convex, the tips of the disc flowers spread apart, leaving the center disc flowers clumped into a pattern that looks like a simple flower. — An Echinacea flower bud whose petals are just beginning to lengthen and color. The disc center is just beginning to turn from convex to concave.

Bumblebees seem to love these. Going back through my older photos, every photo of an E. purpurea that has a bee, has this specific type of bumblebee. What type? Perhaps the common eastern bumblebee? I am not sure—I am no bee expert—however, they are bumblebees, not mason bees. Bumblebees have furry abdomens.

This hybrid Echinacea purpurea is less than two feet tall with deeper pink petals. The bumble bee is walking the perimeter of the disc flowers. — Echinacea purpurea with a bumble bee. Photographed October 4, 2017.

The hybrid echinacea will continue to bloom well into the fall. We will find out about the species as the summer continues.

Citizen Science

My hunt for information on bumblebees led me to the Xerces Society, which is dedicated to invertebrate conservation. They have an interesting website, and links to several citizen science projects involving bees, butterflies, and other insects, and freshwater mussels.

Composites—a Brief Glossary

Echinacea purpurea is a composite flower. Composites have hundreds of flowers in each flowerhead.

Each flowerhead can have ray or disc flowers, or both.

Ray flowers each have what we have always called a petal, which is called a ligule by botanists, because it turns out to be comprised of fused petals. For our purposes as gardeners, they will remain petals, but they are special.

Disc flowers make up the flowerhead center.

The florets—the individual flowers—can be all male, all female, mixed, or complete—flowers with male and female parts.

The little green leaves below the flowerhead are modified leaves, called bracts. There are at least four rounds of bracts, which look like slender leaves with hairy maroon margins, on each E. purpurea flowerhead.

So what happened to the sepals? Look at rosebuds: sepals are the modified leaves that enclose the rosebuds. In composites, sepals are reduced to fluff called pappus—which eventually allows your neighbor’s dandelion seeds to float into your yard.

I’ll leave you with one last bit of jargon for the composite family that does not apply to our E. purpurea: DYC, or damn yellow composites. Think dandelions, sunflowers, sow thistle, and everything that looks like them. Depending on your interest, they are either yellow composites of no interest or they are impossible to sort from their cousins because they are so similar.