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PRAIRIE CONEFLOWER 



Ratibida pinnata (Vent.) Barnh. 



July - August Along certain higliways and the railroad right-of-way 



Prairie roadsides in Illinois, there are plants which are remnants of 



the old prairie, most of which has been plowed and 

 its llora changed. Usually in plowed prairie soil other plants spring up; 

 the old species die out and frequently the plants taking their place are 

 escaped cultivated plants or immigrants from Europe or Asia. Only in 

 a comparatively few places in Illinois are there plants typical of the 

 ancient prairie habitat. These stand out as distinctively as if they were 

 foreign rarities consig-ned to a roadside. Instead, they are the original 

 inhabitants. 



Very late in the history of the Ice Age, the Pleistocene, there was 

 mucli flooded, soggy land as a result of melt-water from receding glaciers. 

 'J'hrough the procession of plant succession which took place over many 

 years, the broad lakes filled with plants, and when the long drouth and 

 searing winds came late in post-glacial times, miles of prairie formed in 

 Illinois. Plants which never had grown in Illinois before, during all its 

 forested interglacial times and more rigorous glacial periods, now moved 

 in from western plains. Among these very likely were the columnar and 

 the prairie coneflowers. 



Far more common, inhabitant of most prairie roadsides in Illinois, 

 is the grey-headed or prairie coneflower. It is a ragged-looking plant 

 with grey-green compound leaves and flowers distinguished by their hard 

 grev cones and drooping pale yellow rays. It blooms in late July and 

 August. Like its rare relation, the colmnnar coneflower (Ratibida col- 

 umnlfem), it has, somehow and forever, the look of ancient prairie coun- 



try in its blossoming. 



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