NL·0031Herbarium of the Nature Library
- Name
- Echinacea purpurea
- Family
- Asteraceae
- Native to
- Eastern and central United States: open woods and prairies from Ohio and Michigan south to Louisiana and Georgia
- Habitat
- Tallgrass prairie, Open woodland, Savanna
Purple coneflower
Echinacea purpurea
Also calledRoter Sonnenhut (German) · Equinácea (Spanish) · Échinacée pourpre (French) · Zǐ zhuī jú 紫锥菊 (Chinese) · Black Sampson (US folk)
A prairie daisy with drooping magenta petals around a spiny copper cone, now one of the best-selling herbal medicines in the world. The genus name comes from the Greek echinos, hedgehog, after that prickly cone.
Echinacea purpurea, the eastern purple coneflower, purple coneflower, hedgehog coneflower, or Echinacea, is a North American species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is native to parts of eastern North America and present to some extent in the wild in much of the eastern, southeastern and midwestern United States, as well as in the Canadian Province of Ontario. It is most common in the Ozarks, the Mississippi Valley, and the Ohio Valley. Its habitats include dry open woods, prairies, and barrens. Wikipedia
What it can do
- iRoots contain alkamides that cause a tingling numbness on the tongue
- iiLong-lasting flowers feed bees and butterflies, and seed heads feed goldfinches into winter
- iiiDeep taproots and fibrous roots let it survive prairie droughts and fires
At the table
Used as tea, tincture or extract rather than as food.
In the medicine cabinet
| Tradition | Use |
|---|---|
| Indigenous American | Plains nations used Echinacea, mainly E. angustifolia and E. pallida, for toothache, sore throat, snakebite and wounds; E. purpurea itself was less used |
| American Eclectic medicine | Popularised from the 1880s by Eclectic physicians and the Lloyd Brothers for infections and 'bad blood' |
| Modern phytotherapy | Aerial-part and root extracts taken to prevent or shorten colds; pressed juice approved in Germany |
Weight of evidence
Moderate. Some clinical trials with promising but limited or mixed results.
Active compounds
alkamides (dodecatetraenoic acid isobutylamides), cichoric acid, caftaric acid, polysaccharides, echinacoside (mainly other species)
Fruit & seed
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Fruit
Cypsela (achene)
Ripens: Late summer–autumn
Four-angled, tan achenes in the spiny cone; eaten by birds, not people.
Seed
~4–5 mm
Angular, tan, crowned with tiny teeth
- Dispersal
- Falls near the parent; birds scatter some
- Germination
- Improved by 4–6 weeks' cold moist stratification; 10–20 days at 20 °C
Photographs from Wikimedia Commons under open licences; hover for the photographer, click for the file.
How to grow it
Hardiness (USDA zones)
USDA 3–9. Survives winters down to about -40 °C.
- Light
- Full sun to light shade
- Water
- Low–moderate
- Soil
- Well-drained loam; tolerates clay and drought
- Propagation
- Seed or division
- To harvest
- Flowers in year 1–2; roots at 3–4 years
- Climates
- Temperate, Continental
- 1Sow outdoors in autumn or stratify seed in the fridge before spring sowing
- 2Plant 45 cm apart in sun
- 3Leave seed heads standing for birds over winter
- 4Divide clumps every 4 years
Can it grow where you are?
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Native range
Eastern and central United States: open woods and prairies from Ohio and Michigan south to Louisiana and Georgia
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the old herbals & bestiaries
Woodcuts and engravings matched from the Source Library’s scanned books by name. Plates marked “relative” show a close kin rather than this exact species. Click a plate to read the page it came from, with translation.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Echinacea purpurea in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
Marginalia
In the 1880s the Nebraska patent-medicine maker H. C. F. Meyer sold 'Meyer's Blood Purifier' made from Echinacea. In the 1930s the German firm Madaus mistakenly imported E. purpurea seed instead of E. angustifolia, and so built Europe's echinacea industry on this species.
Curiosity
Linnaeus first classed it as a Rudbeckia, a black-eyed Susan. It was moved to its own genus, Echinacea, by Conrad Moench in 1794.
Kinship
Photographs: iNaturalist contributors under the licences shown. Records: GBIF.org. Historical plates: Source Library (CC BY-SA 4.0; originals public domain). Summary text: Nature Library editors and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Medicinal and edibility notes are historical and educational, not advice. iNaturalist taxon 48627.