Rudbeckia grandiflora
Asteraceae
alternate
petiolate
simple
elliptic, lanceolate, ovate
forb, shrub
yellow
many
April - October
0.5 - 1.5
No
Unarmed
native
perennial
Warm season
8
Similar to R. maxima which has leaves up to 15 cm wide with a whitish, waxy coating and disk flowers 8 cm long, while the leaves of R. grandiflora are less than 8 cm wide, lustrous, and its disk flowers are less than 6 cm long. It is also similar to R. texana which has disk flowers that are 4-8 cm long in fruit and lower leaves 16-25 cm long by 6-8 cm wide, often triple nerved below, while R. grandiflora has disk flowers that are less than 4 cm long in fruit and basal leaves that are 8-15 cm long by 5-10 cm wide and 5- to 3-nerved. Stem and leaves not hairy, style branches short and blunt. Achene with 4 nearly equal facets.
Easily grown from seeds collected in the fall when the cones become loose. Seeds germinate with no treatment in 1-2 weeks. Steffen (1997) recommends cold/moist or cold/dry stratification, possiably to break dormancy induced by long term storage. Plants
The leaves are eaten by white-tailed deer (Holmes 1990) Cattle occasionally graze early leaves. Quail and doves feed on the seeds.
The Acadian name for all of the yellow coneflowers is "marguerite" (Holmes 1990).
Open dry woods and prairies.