Rudbeckia glaucescens

Waxy cone-flower

Family: Asteraceae · Type: perennial · Native

Waxy cone-flower is a California native perennial found in northern California Coast and Klamath Ranges in meadows, seeps, and streambanks, often on serpentine landscapes at elevations of 60 to 1,300 meters. Flowering from July to September, this plant produces yellow-green flowers with 7 to 15 ray flowers up to 4 centimeters long that are often reflexed, creating distinctive radiate flower heads. Growing with stout stems 50 to 150 centimeters tall that are glaucous and blue-green, it develops from a robust rhizome with a simple to sparingly branched structure. Its leaves are lanceolate to elliptic, 20 to 50 centimeters long and 3 to 10 centimeters wide, with smooth edges or occasionally few shallow teeth, presenting a glaucous blue-green appearance. The flower heads feature a prominent conic to columnar receptacle up to 3.5 centimeters long, with brown-tinged paleae and disk flowers in green-yellow tones.

Habitat: Meadows, seeps, mires, streambanks, often on serpentine

Bloom period: Jul-Sep

Elevation: 60-1300 m

Bioregions: n NCo, KR

California counties: Del Norte, Siskiyou, Trinity

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.