Purple Coneflower
Echinacea purpurea
Purple Coneflower · Brooklyn Botanic Garden · 5 August 2023
The cone is not one flower but several hundred, and they open in a ring that travels outward from the base over a week or more. The orange spikes are the ones currently in bloom; everything inside the ring is finished, everything outside it has yet to start.
The spines that give the plant its name - echinos, hedgehog - are the bracts between the florets, stiffening as the head matures. Goldfinches take the seed straight out of it in autumn, which is a good argument for leaving the stems standing.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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