2. Echinacea pallida (Nutt.) Nutt. (pale purple coneflower)

Brauneria pallida (Nutt.) Britton

Pl. 277 c, d; Map 1172

Plants with a usually elongated, vertical rootstock and often somewhat tuberous main roots, sometimes also with short, stout rhizomes. Stems (40–)60–150 cm long, mostly unbranched, sparsely to moderately pubescent with stiff, spreading, minutely pustular-based hairs. Leaves with the margins entire and usually pubescent with spreading hairs, the surfaces moderately to densely pubescent with stiff, mostly spreading, mostly minutely pustular-based hairs, moderately to strongly roughened to the touch, with 3(5) main veins. Basal leaves 8–35 cm long, the blade narrowly elliptic to narrowly lanceolate or lanceolate, mostly 5–20 times as long as wide, long-tapered or narrowly angled at the base. Stem leaves 4–25 cm long, linear to narrowly elliptic or narrowly lanceolate, otherwise similar to the basal leaves. Involucral bracts 7–15 mm long, the outer surface moderately pubescent with mostly pustular-based hairs, not glandular. Receptacle 2–4 cm in diameter, the chaffy bracts 9–14 mm long, hardened, usually dark purple toward the tip. Ray florets with the corolla (3–)4–9 cm long, 5–8 mm wide, reflexed or drooping at flowering, pale pink to pink (rarely white elsewhere). Disc florets with the corolla 6–8 mm long, the tube yellow to green, the lobes pink to dark purple. Pollen white when fresh. Fruits 2.5–5.0 mm long. 2n=44. May–July.

Scattered to common nearly throughout the state but apparently absent from the Mississippi Lowlands Division (Nebraska to Texas east to Indiana and Georgia; Canada; introduced sporadically elsewhere in the eastern U.S.). Upland prairies, glades, savannas, and openings of dry upland forests, also pastures, railroads, and roadsides.

McGregor (1968) suggested that E. pallida is an allopolyploid derived from past hybridization between E. simulata and the closely related E. sanguinea Nutt. (of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana). Binns et al. (2002) chose to interpret all three of these taxa as varieties of E. pallida. Rare plants with white ray corollas occur as isolated individuals within some populations and have been called f. albida Steyerm.