Echinacea, a genus of flower in the daisy family is sold
in many over-the-counter cold and flu remedies
and sold in
pharmacies and health and nutrition stores. Echinacea has nine wild species in eastern and
central North America that grow in moist to dry prairies and in open wooded
areas. The genus includes the purple coneflower, pale purple coneflower and
narrow-leaved purple coneflower. All have large magenta petals that unfurl from
early to late summer.
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The coneflower is one of the “top five” retail sellers having
gained in popularity as an herbal supplement and feature plant in perennial
gardens according to the National Garden Bureau and chosen as the 2014 plant of
the year “because it’s such an American staple.”
Now the formerly abundant narrow-leaved purple coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia),
native to the tall grass prairie and North American Great Plains are becoming scarce.
“…with the arrival of European
settlers in about 1870, many prairies were converted to agricultural fields.
Along with other prairie plants, coneflowers were plowed under.” says Ruth
Shaw, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Minnesota.
The native flower is now restricted to patches
of grassland, plots that are prairie remnants, Shaw and colleague Stuart
Wagenius of the Chicago Botanic Garden have found.
Through a National Science Foundation (NSF)
Long-Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) grant, the scientists are
studying the genetic composition of narrow-leaved purple coneflowers in a Douglas
County, Minnesota prairie and discovering how such fragmented plant populations
adapt to environmental change.
Railroad tracks and row crops
encroach upon these small slices of prairie. “Native prairies are filled
with plants and pollinators,” says Shaw, “but our 27 study sites have
become little but coneflower islands.”
Sam Scheiner, program director in National Science Foundation’s Division
of Environmental Biology, which funds the research adds, “Many of us use
an extract of Echinacea for our health. Live Echinacea plants
can also help us understand the health of entire ecosystems. “Human
activities have shrunk wildlands and fragmented the landscape,” says
Scheiner, “with unknown consequences for the plants and animals living
there. Understanding how Echinacea is responding will help us better
manage natural areas.”
Tallgrass prairie is among the most endangered habitats in the world, says Wagenius. “We hope to quickly learn as much about it as we can. With some effort, we might be able to save at least some of these prairie patches.”
Read more at the National
Science Foundation.
Echinacea angustifolia image via Shutterstock.