Flower:

8 to 25 flower heads at the top of the plant, single at the tips of long stalks and the tips of branching stems. Flowers are 2 to 3 inches across with 10 to 16 yellow petals (ray flowers) that are sparsely hairy and gland-dotted on the underside. The center disk is a purplish-brown, dome-shaped to hemispheric, and covered in up to 400 tiny dark purplish-brown flowers that bloom from the bottom of the disk up. The bracts surrounding the base of the flower are hairy, gland-dotted, unequal in size, lance to egg-shaped with a sharply pointed tip, and the inner bracts smaller than the outer. Flower stalks are ribbed and densely covered in short, ascending hairs.

Leaves and stems:

Leaves are gland dotted and rough-hairy, especially on the underside and along major veins. Lower and basal leaves are up to 8 inches long and 4 inches wide with 3 to 5 lance-elliptic lobes, coarsely toothed around the lobe edges, and stalked.

Mid and upper stem leaves are smaller, unlobed and more egg-shaped, short-stalked to stalkless, sparsely toothed to toothless, rounded to wedge-shaped at the base and pointed at the tip. Stems are branched, mostly erect, ridged, densely short hairy in the upper plant and typically hairless or nearly so near the base.

Fruit:

The center disk becomes a head of dark, 4-sided seeds that lack a tuft of hairs.

Notes:

Sweet Coneflower has only been recorded once in Minnesota, in Mower County near the Iowa border, putting Minnesota at the extreme northern tip of its range. The flowers are similar to the related and much more common Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), which is easily distinguished by its long spreading hairs and unbranched or few-branched habit. The mix of lobed and unlobed leaves is shared with Brown-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia triloba), which has smaller flowers and a proportionately larger center disk. Sweet Coneflower is occasionally available in the nursery trade and is a personal favorite Rudbeckia species for the home garden.