Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

GOLDEN GLOW

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Rudbeckia laciniata L.

Wildcat Glades Conservation & Audubon Center, Newton County, Missouri

Perennial

Height: 20-120 inches

Family: Asteraceae - Sunflower Family

Flowering Period: July, August, September

Also Called:

Cut-leaf coneflower.

Stems:

Erect, branched above, whitish, glabrous, often somewhat waxy.

Leaves:

Alternate, broadly ovate to lanceolate, 2.8 to 16 inches long, 1 to 8 inches wide, many deeply divided in 3-7 segments; surfaces mostly glabrous or sparsely stiff-hairy beneath; margins coarsely-toothed, deeply-cut or sometimes entire; tips pointed; basal leaves often absent at flowering, stalked; stalks 6-20 inches long; stem leaves stalked or sessile; upper leaves much smaller, lanceolate, entire to toothed.

Inflorescences:

Heads 2-25, 1.2 to 3.2 inch across, in loose, corymb-like array; bracts 8-15, ovate , elliptic, lanceolate, to linear, 1/3 to 3/5 inch long, leafy, spreading or bent downward; margins mostly fringed; tips pointed.

Flowers:

Ray florets 6-13, elliptic to oblanceolate, 3/5 to 2 inches long, yellow, drooping; disk florets 150-300, about 1/6 inch long, dull yellow; chaffy bracts blunt, sticky-pubescent at tip.

Fruits:

Achene, 4-angled, (square in cross-section), about 1/6 to 1/5 inch long, tipped by short, toothed crown.

Habitat:

Stream and river banks, margins of lakes and ponds, open woods, thickets, roadsides; moist soils.

Distribution:

Primarily east 2/5 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Forage Value:

The lower leaves remain green over winter, providing food for white-tailed deer.

Uses:

Native Americans applied a compound poultice of blossoms to burns; took a compound tea of steeped roots for indigestion and applied the liquid to the legs and chest of horses as a stimulant. Young stems were eaten like celery, the leaves used in spring salads, and the young leaves and shoots were boiled and fried with fat or cooked with eggs.

Comments:

Golden glow is sometimes cultivated as an ornamental and escapes.

Golden glow