The species, and the plant every named coneflower was bred from. Magenta-pink ray petals sweeping downwards from a prominent coppery-orange cone, at 80 to 100cm, flowering July through September.
The drooping petals are not a fault. That reflexed, swept-back shape is what the wild prairie plant does, and in a naturalistic or prairie-style planting it looks right in a way the flat-faced cultivars do not. It is a question of which effect you are after rather than which is better.
Where the species genuinely beats the named sorts is fertility. Many modern echinacea cultivars set little or no viable seed and a good few are sterile. This one self-seeds freely, so if you leave the cones standing through winter you will get volunteers, and over five or six years a single sowing turns into a self-renewing colony that flowers bigger every year and costs nothing further. The winter cones feed goldfinches too. Like all echinacea it emerges late in spring, so mark where it is before you plant over it.
