USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. An illustrated flora of the northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions. 3 vols. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. Vol. 3: 470.
NEWSC HAS A LOCAL ECOTYPE SEED SOURCE, SO THIS IS NOT A PRIORITY.
Where Commonly Found: Meadows, fields, woodlands, disturbed sites, CT, ME, MA, NH, NY, RI, VT.
How to Identify:
(For unfamiliar words: Wikipedia Glossary of Botanical Terms).
Go Botany Key to Rudbeckia hirta.
Missouri Botanical Garden Site for Rudbeckia hirta.
Flower Type: June – late September, the familiar composite daisy-like Black-Eyed Susan bloom forms, singly, at the top of a stem, and has 8-20 yellow to orange ray florets with dark brown center flattened cone of many disk florets that are slender and pointed.
Leaf Arrangement: Basal leaves with long hairy petioles gather at the plant base while middle and upper alternative leaves form along long hairy stems.
Leaf Type: Leaves on the stems are up to 7″ long by 2″ across, lanceolate, oblanceolate or ovate with short petioles or clasped tight to the stem.
Height: 2′-3′
Seed Collection: The achene seeds form from the disk florets on the center cone and are black, long, finely veined and without tufts of hair.
Attracts: Bees, Butterflies, Birds
Use: Naturalizing or as an Annual in Gardens
Light: Full Sun
Hardiness Zone: 3 to 7 USDA Zone Map
Soils: Dry to Moist
Notes: Black-Eyed Susan is a beloved short-lived but showy long-flowering perennial that readily reseeds.
Naturalized IN New England, native to nearly all rest of the US east of the Rockies: Biota of North America Program (BONAP) – North America Plant Atlas (NAPA).
Northeast Wild Seed Collectors 
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