The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Rudbeckia auriculata
Also called Alabama Coneflower
A tall, long-lived perennial coneflower from acid bogs of the southeastern USA, reaching over 3 m, grown mainly in prairie restorations and botanic gardens. Its key to success is boggy, low-nutrient soil, since it struggles in ordinary garden borders and tends to lodge in rich soil.
Rudbeckia auriculata (Perdue) Kral., commonly known as the eared coneflower, is a species of flowering plant in the Asteraceae Bercht. & J.Presl., native to acid bogs in the southeast United States.
This species is little known in cultivation as it is difficult to grow within a typical mixed or herbaceous border unless provided with boggy soil. R. auriculata is occasionally available from specialist nurseries but is typically only used in prairie restorations or within botanic gardens. One major drawback is R. auriculatas propensity to lodge, this is most severe when grown in rich soils that differ from the low nutrient peaty soils the species is adapted to
Rudbeckia auriculata is endemic to the USA especially the southeast. Most recorded populations occur in Alabama with one population in Georgia. Previously this species was found in Florida but this population is presumed extinct. The distribution and population of this species is reducing with the majority of sites producing fewer than 50 flowering stems annually. R. auriculata along with the closely related R. scabrifolia and R. morhii occupy habitats such as peat bogs and can be found in disturbed areas such as alongside roads and within grazed fields. Healthy beaver populations support R. auricuata by engineering rivers to slow waterflow and create bogs. R. auriuclata is found in similar habitats to R. scabrifolia and Sarracenia spp. Tourn. ex L.
Showy coneflower · Dracopis · California coneflower · Orange coneflower · Grassleaf coneflower · Rough coneflower · Blackeyed Susan · Cutleaf coneflower · Great coneflower · Missouri orange coneflower · Western coneflower · Sweet coneflower
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Rudbeckia auriculata by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
