Rudbeckia missouriensis

Rudbeckia missouriensis is the black-eyed Susan of the Ozark glades, a tough, long-lived native that covers itself in glowing orange-yellow daisies from the first heat of summer straight through to frost. Narrow, hairy, gray-green leaves and slender stems give the plant a finer, softer look than the coarse garden Susans, and the sheer length of bloom sets the species apart, flowering on through the drought and heat that shut down lesser perennials.

As the name says, this coneflower is a child of Missouri and the surrounding states, native to the rocky prairies, glades, and open ground of Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas, and most at home in the thin, sun-baked soils of the Ozarks. The genus honors Olof Rudbeck, the Swedish botanist who taught Linnaeus; missouriensis simply fixes the plant to the heart of the range. Gardeners will recognize the flower as a near twin of the familiar orange coneflower, Rudbeckia fulgida, differing in the fuzzy stems and leaves.

Each daisy carries a ring of orange-yellow rays around a dark brown button of a center, and the long procession of bloom feeds bees and butterflies for months, while the ripe seed heads carry small birds into winter. In the garden, Missouri coneflower belongs at the front or middle of a sunny border, in a meadow or prairie planting, a rock garden, or a hot, dry bank where softer plants struggle, drifted among little bluestem, coreopsis, and asters for a long season of native color. The tidy, clumping habit stays where the plant is set rather than running.

Few perennials are so forgiving: Missouri coneflower shrugs off drought, shallow rocky ground, clay, heat, and browsing deer, asking only full sun and reasonable drainage. Leave the seed heads standing for the birds and the winter silhouette, then cut the old stems in late winter as the new rosette rises. A dependable, drought-proof native that pays back a hot, difficult spot with months of gold.