What Are the Characteristics of the Purple Coneflower? A Complete Guide

The Family and Genus of the Purple Coneflower

The purple coneflower is a perennial herbaceous plant of the genus Echinacea in the family Asteraceae.

Other Names for the Purple Coneflower

The purple coneflower is also called purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, and eastern purple coneflower.

The Origin of the Purple Coneflower

It is mainly distributed in North America and is widely cultivated around the world.

In China, it is mainly distributed in Shanxi, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Qinghai, Gansu, Xinjiang (Shanshan), and other places.

The purple coneflower grows on hillsides, hills, plains, farmland, wasteland, and other terrains. It is also found in Central Asia and Siberia in the Soviet Union, Mongolia, and Iran.

Morphological Characteristics of the Purple Coneflower

The purple coneflower grows 50-150 cm tall, the whole plant is covered with coarse hairs, and the stems are upright.

The basal leaves are ovate or triangular, and the stem leaves are ovate-lanceolate. The capitulum is borne singly at the top of the stem, the flowers are relatively large, and the flower head is 8-13 cm in diameter. The central part protrudes into a spherical shape, the tubular flowers on the sphere are orange-yellow, and the outer part consists of ligulate petals, which may be red, pink, bicolor, or white.

The purple coneflower blooms from June to July, and the seeds mature in late October. The outer coat is relatively hard and light brown.