Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds.

Time of bloom: July to October.

Seed-time: August to November.

Range: Virginia to Missouri, southward to the Carolinas, Alabama, and Louisiana. Locally in the Northern States from New York to Michigan. Habitat: Meadows, fence rows, and waste places.

Fig. 323. - Black-eyed Susan (Rud-beckia hirta). X 1/4.

Fig. 324. - Purple Cone-flower (Brauneria purpurea). X 1/4.

The range of this weed is being rapidly extended by the agency of baled hay and grass seeds. It is a handsome plant, two to four feet tall, with slender, rough-hairy stem, usually without branches. Leaves dark green, three to eight inches in length, alternate or the lower ones opposite, lance-shaped, hairy, long-pointed, the lower ones five-ribbed, toothed, and petioled, the upper ones entire and sessile. Heads large, solitary, with a conical disk having deep purple, tubular, perfect, and fertile florets surrounded by twelve to twenty large, drooping rays which are pistillate but sterile; these are dull magenta-red, about two inches long, notched at their tips. Bracts of the involucre imbricated in three to five rows, rather soft and lax, nearly linear, and finely hairy. Achenes short and thick, the pappus a toothed crown. (Fig. 324.)

Means Of Control

If the infestation is new and the area not too large, it will pay to rid the soil of the perennial roots by hand-pulling the plants before the development of seed. Rankly infested ground requires to be put under cultivation.