PURPLE CONEFLOWER--Echinacea angustifolia
Description:  This warm-season forb grows from an enlarged taproot to produce stiffly erect stems, 1 to 2 feet tall, each capped with a single, showy flower head.  The flower head disk is dark brown, 1/2 to 1 1/4 inches across, dome-like, and prickly with sharp-tipped bracts.  Rays are rose, purple, or seldom white, 1/2 to 1 1/2 inches long.  Lance-shaped leaves are near the base of the stem.  Both leaves and stems are covered with short, stiff hairs.  Purple coneflower flowers during June and July.  After rays fall, the black prickly cone remains conspicuous.
Distribution, habitat:  Purple coneflower is found in the prairies of Saskatchewan and Manitoba and south to Texas.  As a Great Plains exclusive, it grows abundantly in the plains and prairies of South Dakota but with preference for rocky hillsides and weakly developed soils.
Comments:  Purple coneflower, or black samson, is utilized by most grazing and browsing mammals, large and small, and where abundant it is an indicator of healthy range.  When chewed, the root has a numbing, anesthetic effect on the mouth.  The root has been widely used by Plains Indians to treat snakebite, stings, toothache, coughs, sore mouth and gums, neck pain, rheumatism, arthritis, mumps and measles, smallpox, boils, and more.  The plant was their most important plains herbal medicine.  Recent interest in Echinacea medicinal and herbal values has resulted in a cottage industry centered around its cultivation.  Stands of naturally occurring purple coneflower have been reduced by root digging.  Purple coneflower is used in prairie restoration.  Purple coneflowers, especially E. purpurea, are used as garden ornamentals.
	Picture and information can be found on pages 114 and 115 of Grassland Plants of South Dakota and the Northern Great Plains, by James R. Johnson and Gary E. Larson.  Published in 1999 by South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD.