Black-eyed Susan

Summertime yellows, I see them everywhere!  Fragments of yellow blossoms flash against the green landscape like tiny bits of sunlight.  Tickseed, beach sunflower, cassia, and black-eyed Susans are all blooming now. 

Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) differs from many of our yellow composite wildflowers by the shape of the fertile array of disk flowers (the brown center); it has a distinctive cone shape that is similar to Echinacea or purple coneflower.  In fact, another common name for black-eyed Susan is yellow coneflower.

Wikipedia reports that the roots have been used like those of Echinacea.  Black-eyed Susan contains anthocyanin, an antioxidant found in many purple, blue, and red fruits such as blueberries, raspberries, and cranberries, as well as the stems, leaves, and flower petals of some plants.  Historically, different parts of the wildflower were used by Native Americans for various ailments.  The Cherokee used the roots for snakebite, worms, and earaches.¹   Seminoles used the coneflowers for headaches and fevers. ²

Black-eyed Susan grows as a wildflower throughout most of the United States, but is also a popular cultivated garden flower.  It’s a biennial plant, with a two year life span, but sometimes grows as a short-lived perennial.  Forming a basal rosette of leaves the first year, plants send up stems and bloom the second year.  In Florida, I usually see them growing along the edges of grassy areas near pine flatwoods.  Black-eyed Susan blooms attract bees, butterflies, and other insects foraging for nectar and pollen, and birds for the ripe seedheads. 

The leaves and stems are scabrous, an interesting-sounding word that always bring to my mind the term “frabjous” from The Jabberwocky.  Scabrous actually has a more ordinary meaning: rough, or having a rough surface, an apt description of the coarse bristly hairs covering those parts.  The species name refers to these hairs as well; hirtus is from the Latin for “hairy.”  The genus name of Rudbeckia was bestowed by Linnaeus to honor Olaus Rudbeck, one of his botany professors.

Reading and researching black-eyed Susan online brought up some other fascinating tidbits.  Sending a black-eyed Susan bouquet to a loved one in Victorian times meant “encouragement.”  I also came across a charming and romantic legend about black-eyed Susan and sweet William, memorialized in a poem by English author John Gay.  I grew up knowing sweet William as a type of wild phlox, with five petals and light blue-to-lavender in color.  It’s more probable that the name sweet William actually refers to a type of Dianthus, which is native to Europe.

I drew this as part of The Sketchbook Project in the small sketchbook provided.  If you’re not familiar with the project, you can read about it here.  So far, my booklet seems to be turning into a collection of flowers found in Florida – but we’ll wait to see what else might appear on its pages!  So far, I think this one has to be my favorite; after sketching and reading about this common wildflower, I have a deepened appreciation for its uncommon beauty and history.

**Note: ethnobotany information is intended for educational purposes only, please consult reliable  sources before attempting to duplicate any medical uses!**

  

^{1, 2} http://www.bio.brandeis.edu/fieldbio/medicinal_plants/pages/Black_Eyed_Susan.htm

² http://herb.umd.umich.edu/herb/search.pl?searchstring=Rudbeckia+hirta

Media:

The Sketchbook Project sketchbook,

Pitt Artist pen in black, size XS for the sketch, and S for the text

Kimberly watercolor pencils, Derwent Inktense,

Niji Aquabrush, small size.

  

For further reading:

US Department of Agriculture, with range map 

Floridata,  descriptions and growing information

Sketching at Fakahatchee ~ April trip

Painting in between the raindrops!

We met for our final sketch outing last Saturday at Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park.  In spite of overcast skies and drizzling rain, we managed to explore a bit and do some nice studies.  Luckily we had the use of a covered porch when we got too wet and chilled!

Ink and watercolor fungi study (with a few splatters from the sky).

This month we met at a place within the northern area of the park, which was a change from the southernmost locations of our previous meetings.  It was a good turn-out; artists worked with different media and enjoyed the strains of 15^th and 16^th century melodies played by a musical artist on her wooden recorder.

We had a chance to explore a trail that bordered a wooded area of cabbage palms and wax myrtle.  The edges of habitats are often the most interesting, and we saw a number of ferns, grasses, and blooming wildflowers in white, yellow, pink, and purple. 

Black-eyed Susan wildflowers in ink and watercolor, quick sketches.

Black-eyed Susan flowers (Rudbeckia hirta) were a glowing yellow against the deep green of dewy ferns.  Closer to the ground were the violet-to-lavender trumpets of wild petunia (Ruellia sp.) drooping from the weight of the light rain.  Pine pinks, a terrestrial orchid (Bletia purpurea), dotted the grassy edges with hooded blooms tinted a delicate pink, some plants already sporting their fattened seedpods.

Pine pink, a terrestrial orchid, was plentiful along the wood's edges. Blooms are only about 1/4 to 3/8 inches.  I think I could use some better glasses for close-up work!

I chose to use my smallest sketchbook by Pentalic, only 7 by 5 inches, with the rationale that it would be easier to protect from the rain than a larger book.  The upside is that I was able to do a series of small studies, rather than one large page.

Ink and watercolor - I'm actually using a waterproof ink (Pitt Artist pens), but it's not waterproof until it dries!  The smudges are from drawing into a rain drop on my page; then the ink blossoms into the waterdrop!

I had a wonderful day in spite of the weather, and enjoyed being in the company of those who love art and nature.  The fact that it was also Earth Day and the 35^th Worldwide SketchCrawl made it special; being our last get-together for the year made it even more poignant.  The good news is that the Park has given us approval for next year, so mark your calendars!

Nature Sketch sketchbook by Pentalic
7x5 in, (17.78x12.7 cm),
Black Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen XS,
Daniel Smith watercolors.

Click on images to view larger.

To view a slideshow of images from En Plein Air ~ Arts in the Fakahatchee, April 2012, please click below.  Thank you to everyone who attended, and especially to Ranger Karen Relish for setting this up, giving us an historical overview of each location, and for answering all our nature-related questions.

En Plein Air - Fakahatchee April 2012 - slideshow dvd