Black-Eyed Susan

Where it grows

Black-eyed Susan is a short-lived perennial or biennial native to meadows, prairies, and open woods across most of North America, from southern Canada to Texas. It self-seeds reliably enough that gardeners treat it as a perennial. It has naturalised across China and parts of Europe.

How to recognise it

Stiff hairy stems thirty to a hundred centimetres tall carry rough, lance-shaped leaves and large composite flowers up to eight centimetres across. Twelve to twenty bright golden-yellow ray florets surround a domed disc of dark brown to almost black tubular florets. The whole plant is bristly to the touch.

Garden & cultural uses

Rudbeckia hirta forms the backbone of prairie-style plantings developed by Piet Oudolf and other garden designers, alongside grasses and coneflowers. The horse race that opens the U.S. Triple Crown, the Preakness, awards a blanket of black-eyed Susans to its winner — actually painted yellow daisies, since the real flowers do not bloom in May.

In symbolism

In nineteenth-century American flower language the flower meant “encouragement and justice” — an apt match for a plant that returns year after year to abandoned lots and roadside ditches.