Black or Brown eyed susan

photo by P. Harrington

There are dozens of flowers that have this same color and structure. This is Rudbeckia hirta, very common to central Ohio. It has very hairy leaves and stems with distinctive veins on the leaves. It is one of the first yellow flowers to bloom in meadows/ prairies and is a sign of summer for lots of people. It isn't considered to be very long lived, but given the chance it reseeds easily on bare soil. Closer to the end of summer, Rudbeckia triloba blooms, which has smaller but more numerous flowers and is a larger plant all together. The black-eyed susan found in almost every garden center and nursery is "Goldstrum", a variety of another species. I have seen mass plantings of this everywhere and commonly reduced to tatters by a foliar disease. I just don't like "Goldstrum". Maybe because it is overused, its refined growth habit, whatever. It just doesn't look like a wildflower to me.