Today was maybe the best weather day of the summer in my opinion, a nice breeze all day and just below 70 degrees. We took full advantage of the great weather and went to our Landfill remnant to finish doing total demo. We only did total demo on part of the site but, we still visited 687 previously flowering Echinacea and even found some never before seen individuals!
It didn’t take long to finish demo at the Landfill, so we did some miscellaneous jobs for the rest of the morning. In the afternoon we went to Hegg Lake WMA to find any remaining individuals of the treasonous Echinacea pallida. We found three pallida and quickly relieved them of their heads. One of the individuals we found appeared to have aster yellows, a disease that affects many species in the Aster family including E. angustifolia and E. pallida. It is possible that pallida, a non-native, could outcompete the native variety (hence the decapitation to prevent the spreading of achenes). So it is good to know that like our much loved Echinacea angustifolia, Echinacea pallida can get sick too!
An E. pallida with what appears to be a case of aster yellows.
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