Location: Hegg Lake WMA. Start year: 2011. Echinacea pallida is a species of Echinacea that is not native to Minnesota. It was mistakenly introduced to our study area during a restoration of Hegg Lake WMA. Since 2011, Team Echinacea has visited the pallida restoration, taken flowering phenology, and collected demography on the non-native plant. We have decapitated all flowering E. pallida each year to avoid cross-pollination with the local Echinacea angustifolia. Each year, we record the number of heads on each plant and the number of rosettes, collect precise GPS points for each individual, and cut off all the heads before they produce fruits.
This year, we cut E. pallida heads on June 22nd. We installed pollinator exclusion bags on select heads of 10 plants rather than immediately cutting them as a part of our quantity and quality of Echinacea pollen and nectar experiment. Overall, we found and shot 73 flowering E. pallida plants, and 193 heads in total, averaging 2.6 heads per plant. These non-native plants were hearty with an average rosette count of 6 rosettes and an individual with a maximum of 20 rosettes! We only did surv on plants with new tags this year, a total of 4. We did not take phenology data on E. pallida this year.
You can find more information about E. pallida flowering phenology and previous flog posts on the background page for the experiment.
Location: near exPt8. Start year: Crossing in 2011, planting in 2012. Experimental plot 6 was the first E. angustifolia x E. pallida hybrid plot planted by Team Echinacea. A total of 66 Echinacea hybrids were originally planted. All individuals have E. angustifolia dams and E. pallida sires. In 2023, we visited 23 positions and found 17 living plants. This year, 3 plants flowered in this plot; this is the first year any plants have flowered in p6! These were allowed to reach day one or two of flowering in order to assess their pollen color before we decapitated them.
Flowering plant in exPt06! Note the paler pollen color compared to the typical E. Angustifolia
You can find more information about experimental plot 6 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA. Start year: Crossing in 2012, planting in 2013. Experimental plot 7 is the second E. pallida x E. angustifolia plot. It contains conspecific crosses of each species as well as reciprocal hybrids, totaling 294 individuals. This summer, we visited 150 positions, and of these plants, we found evidence of 121 living plants. We did not use pollinator exclusion bags in exPt07 this year. There were 19 flowering plants this year; from these we harvested 32 heads. We have not yet used the pedigree data to see what number of these plants are hybrids or not.
You can find more information about experimental plot 7 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA. Start year: 2014. Experimental plot 9 is a hybrid plot, but, unlike the other two hybrid plots, we do not have a perfect pedigree of the plants. That is because the E. angustifolia and E. pallida maternal plants used to generate seedlings for exPt9 were open-pollinated. We need to do paternity analysis to find the true hybrid nature of these crosses (assuming there are any hybrids). We did not use pollinator exclusion bags in exPt09 this year. There were originally 745 seedlings planted in exPt9. We searched at 292 positions and found evidence of 238 living plants in 2023. Of these individuals, 30 were flowering. We harvested 39 heads from this plot!
You can find out more information about experimental plot 9 and flog posts mentioning the experiment on the background page for the experiment.
Data collected for exp679: For all three plots, we collected flowering status, rosette count, leaf length, head count and head height. All measuring data can be found in the cgdata repository (~/cgdata/summer2023/measureGood). Measuring data should be uploaded to SQL database eventually, but it is not currently there for 2023. For experimental plots 7 and 9, we also took phenology data starting on July 7th and ending on July 12th, which we scaled back from previous years. This data can be found in the cgdata repository (~cgdata/summer2023/p79phenology).
Data collected for E. pallida demography: Demography data, head counts, rosette counts, GPS points shot for each E. pallida with a new tag. Find demo and surv records as well as GPS points in demap.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA. Start year: 2011. Echinacea pallida is a species of Echinacea that is not native to Minnesota. It was mistakenly introduced to our study area during a restoration of Hegg Lake WMA. Since 2011, Team Echinacea has visited the pallida restoration, taken flowering phenology, and collected demography on the non-native plant. We have decapitated all flowering E. pallida each year to avoid cross-pollination with the local Echinacea angustifolia. Each year, we record the number of heads on each plant and the number of rosettes, collect precise GPS points for each individual, and cut off all the heads before they produce fruits. This year, we cut E. pallida heads off on June 28th. Overall, we found and shot 224 flowering E. pallida plants, and 824 heads in total, averaging 3.7 heads per plant. These non-native plants were hearty with an average rosette count of 8 rosettes and an individual with a maximum of 65 rosettes! We did not take phenology data on E. pallida this year.
You can find more information about E. pallida flowering phenology and previous flog posts on the background page for the experiment.
Location: near exPt8. Start year: Crossing in 2011, planting in 2012Experimental plot 6 was the first E. angustifolia x E. pallida hybrid plot planted by Team Echinacea. A total of 66 Echinacea hybrids were originally planted. All individuals have E. angustifolia dams and E. pallida sires. In 2022, we visited exPt06 on June 27th visited 28 positions and found 18 living plants. No plants have flowered in this plot yet.
You can find more information about experimental plot 6 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA. Start year: Crossing in 2012, planting in 2013. Experimental plot 7 is the second E. pallida x E. angustifolia plot. It contains conspecific crosses of each species as well as reciprocal hybrids, totaling 294 individuals. This summer, we visited 215 positions, and of these plants, only 119 plants were still alive. When measuring, we put pollen exclusion bags over every flowering head. There were 28 flowering plants this year, which is the most flowering plants in this plot to-date. From these 28 flowering plants, we harvested 28 heads. We have not yet used the pedigree data to see what number of these plants are hybrids or not.
You can find more information about experimental plot 7 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA. Start year: 2014. Experimental plot 9 is a hybrid plot, but, unlike the other two hybrid plots, we do not have a perfect pedigree of the plants. That is because the E. angustifolia and E. pallida maternal plants used to generate seedlings for exPt9 were open-pollinated. We need to do paternity analysis to find the true hybrid nature of these crosses (assuming there are any hybrids). There were originally 745 seedlings planted in exPt9. We searched at 361 positions and found 247 living plants in 2022. When measuring, we placed pollen exclusion bags over every flowering head. Of these individuals, 49 were flowering. We harvested 109 heads from this plot!
You can find out more information about experimental plot 9 and flog posts mentioning the experiment on the background page for the experiment.
Data collected for exp679: For all three plots, we collected flowering status, rosette count, leaf length, head count and head height. All measuring data can be found in the cgdata repository (~/cgdata/summer2022/measureGood). Measuring data should be uploaded to SQL database eventually, but it is not currently there for 2022. For experimental plots 7 and 9, we also took phenology data periodically through the summer starting on June 24th and ending on August 5th, which can be found in the cgdata repository (~cgdata/summer2022/p79phenology).
Data collected for E. pallida demography: Demography data, head counts, rosette counts, GPS points shot for each E. pallida. Find demo and surv records aiisummer2022 repository. GPS coordinates can be found in demap.
Harvesting Echinacea heads in the common garden experiments this fall was quite the adventure! During the last week in June, the crew got a taste of harvesting when decapitating non-native Echinacea pallida at Hegg before they could produce seeds. Lobbing off Echinacea heads with wild abandon was quite the thrill after spending a month conscientiously navigating the common gardens and measuring plants with care. In total, we cut approximately 824 heads off of 224 flowering pallida plants.
To harvest or not to harvest? Here is Daytona before removing a pallida head.
The field crew started harvesting heads to be cleaned in exPt02 on August 10th. Our final day of harvesting in exPt02 was September 12th, and during that month we harvested exactly 480 Echinacea heads. Our bountiful harvest in exPt02 was thwarted by the local population of thirteen-lined ground squirrels. Many of this summer’s field team recounts witnessing these rodents ruthlessly rip the head off an Echinacea, look them straight in the eye, and run away. In the end, our 480 heads accounted for only 41% of the heads we planned on harvesting prior to the squirrel shenanigans.
This was a typical view while harvesting in exPt01! So much tall Sorghastrum and Andropogon at eye level.
We also harvested heads in some sites with fewer flowering Echinacea. In exPt08, we harvested 8 heads, and there were three flowering plants in t-plot that may have succumbed to the ground squirrels before we could harvest them. In exPt07 and exPt09, we harvested a combined total of 130 heads. The mysterious exPt05, which required a GPS to be found at Staffanson Prairie, had 4 flowering plants with 2 heads that should’ve been harvested, but didn’t (oops!).
The harvest of our largest experimental plot, exPt01, began on Aug 30th. The exPt01 madness did not end until our final four heads were harvested on October 10th by Gretel and Stuart, which is the latest harvest recorded in Echinacea Project history! The grand total for number of heads harvested in exPt01 was a whopping 1,494 heads.
Manogya hard at work in exPt01 (photo credits to Alex).Teamwork makes the dream work (another great photo from Alex)!
Between all of our common garden experiments, we harvested a total of 2,112 heads!
A note to future Team Echinacea members: Are you still wearing masks all the time? Are you still 3 years behind on cleaning Echinacea heads or have you caught up a little bit?
Anyway, in the summer of 2020 there were 18 heads of Echinacea pallida that were harvested. 11 of these heads were a part of Anna Meehan’s hybrid compatibility experiment. All of the pallida heads are NOT going through the ACE process; they are in the lab all together nice and neat. These 18 pallida heads will not be a part of hh2020. EXCEPT the hybrid plant head (AP-772) who will stay apart of hh.2020 since we need achene count eventually but for now it will stay here until it is dissected.
The heads are in a box labeled “Anna Meehan’s Hybrid Compatibility experiment & E. pallida heads 2020″ in the glass cabinets right as you enter the ecology lab.
The hybrid compatibility experiment would be a perfect project for a student in the lab for a few weeks. They could asses the compatibility of the hybrid with not only the E. angustifolia but also the E. pallida. The experiment is designed with backcrosses (hybrid to parent) and forward crosses (parent to hybrid don’t know if this is the right word I just made it up). The student would be able to access seed set on the hybrid, E. angustifolia, & E. pallida heads. The sample size is fairly small but this would conclude a good pilot study for further studies of the hybrid compatibilities. We also need achene count of the hybrid plant (AP-227)!
Echinacea pallida flowering phenology:Echinacea pallida is a species of Echinacea that is not native to Minnesota. It was mistakenly introduced to our study area during a restoration of Hegg Lake WMA. Since 2011, Team Echinacea has visited the pallida restoration, taken flowering phenology, and collected demography on the non-native. We have decapitated all flowering E. pallida each year to avoid cross-pollination with the local Echinacea angustifolia. Each year, we record the number of heads on each plant and the number of rosettes. We also get precise gps coordinates of all plants and then chop the flowering heads off! This year, we cut E. pallida heads off on July 6th and 8th. We shot gps points as they were found; in the fall, we revisited the plants and did not find any stragglers.
Overall, we found and shot 143 flowering E. pallida plants, and 433 heads in total, averaging 3.02 heads per plant. The average rosette count was 5, the maximum was 27 rosettes — absolutely massive!! When recording data on E. pallida, we forgot that we needed phenology data, so the data from the 6th does not have any phen at all, and the data from the 8th is in the demo form in notes as a string. We do not have very accurate data on phenology of E. pallida this year, but our estimated first day flowering is June 22nd.
Pallida demo/cut/surv involved 7 different people working a total of 1170 minutes (19.5 hours) on 3 separate days.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA Start year: 2011
You can find more information about E. pallida flowering phenology and previous flog posts on the background page for the experiment.
exPt6: Experimental plot 6 was the first E. angustifolia x E. pallida hybrid plot planted by Team Echinacea. A total of 66 Echinacea hybrids were originally planted; all have E. angustifolia dams and E. pallida sires. In 2021, we visited 31 positions and found 15 living plants. No plants have flowered in this plot yet.
Location: near exPt8 Start year: Crossing in 2011, planting in 2012
You can find more information about experimental plot 6 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
exPt7: Planted in 2013, experimental plot #7 was the second E. pallida x E. angustifolia plot. It contains conspecific crosses of each species as well as reciprocal hybrids. There were 294 plants planted. This summer, we visited 176, and of these plants, only 136 plants were still alive. There were 13 flowering plants this year! This is the most flowering plants that this plot has produced. These 26 flowering plants produced 26 heads. We have not yet used the pedigree data to see what number of these plants are hybrids or not.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA Start year: Crossing in 2012, planting in 2013
You can find more information about experimental plot 7 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
exPt9: Experimental plot 9 is a hybrid plot, but, unlike the other two hybrid plots, we do not have a perfect pedigree of the plants. That is because the E. angustifolia and E. pallida maternal plants used to generate seedlings for exPt9 were open-pollinated. We need to do paternity analysis to find the true hybrid nature of these crosses (assuming there are any hybrids). There were originally 745 seedlings planted in exPt9. We found 261 living plants in 2021, 20 of which were flowering, with 42 heads! There were 138 plants that we searched for but could not find.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA Start year: 2014
You can find out more information about experimental plot 9 and flog posts mentioning the experiment on the background page for the experiment.
Measuring p6/7/9 involved 8 different people working a total of 1380 minutes (23 hours) on 2 separate days.
Experimental plots 6, 7, and 9 all burned this year. The peak in number of flowering plants in both p7 and p9 this year is indicative of the effect fire can have on flowering in Echinacea. In the past we have bagged heads in these plots but this year we did not.
Data collected for exp679: For all three plots, we collected rosette number, length of all leaves, and herbivory for each plant. We used visors to collect data electronically, and it is still being processed to be put into our SQL database.
Data collected for E. pallida demography and phenology: Demography data, head counts, rosette counts, gps points shot for each E. pallida. Find demo and phenology visor records in the aiisummer2021 repository. GPS coordinates can be found in demap. As mentioned above, all phenology data from July 8th can be found in demo. For more details, see aiiSummer2021/demo/pallidaPhen.R.
The crew poses after knocking out measuring half of p7 and p9
Echinacea pallida is a species of Echinacea that is not native to
Minnesota. It was mistakenly introduced to our study area during a restoration
of Hegg Lake WMA. Since 2011, Team Echinacea has visited the pallida restoration and taken flowering
phenology and collected demography on the non-native. This year, we decapitated
all flowering Echinacea pallida to
avoid interspecific pollination with the local Echinacea angustifolia. We fear that Echinacea hybrids may be infertile, so we want to avoid the
establishment of as many hybrids as possible.
This year, a team slogged through the Hegg Lake restoration to find flowering Echinacea pallida. We recorded the number of heads on each plant, the number of rosettes (some plants were absolutely massive), shot gps points at all plants, and then chopped the flowering heads off! We visited the restoration and cut E. pallida heads off on July 8th, 9th and 10th of 2019. We revisited plants and shot gps points for them on July 11th, July 12th, and August 1st.
You can distinguish E. pallida and angustifolia heads by pollen color; E. angustifolia has yellow pollen, but E. pallida has white pollen (above).
Overall, we found and shot points
for 97 flowering E. pallida. On
average, each plant produced 2.5 flowering heads. That’s way more than an
average E.angustifolia!The average
rosette count was 5.4, another big number! The largest plant had 23 rosettes.
We collected tissue samples of E. angustifolia, E. pallida, and known hybrids so Elif can assess ploidy at the Chicago Botanic Garden using the flow cytometer.
Start year: 2011
Location: Hegg Lake
Wildlife Management Area Restoration
Data collected: Demography data, head counts, rosette counts, gps points shot for each E. pallida. Cut Echinacea pallida heads, tissue samples for ploidy analysis. Find demo and phenology visor records in the aiisummer2019 repository. Phenology visor records were taken when we cut heads and demography records were taken when we shot GPS points. GPS points can be found in Demap.
A pallida head. Notice the white pollen, which is the only 100% sure way you can be sure a head is pallida and not angustifolia
Echinacea pallidais an Echinacea species that is not native to Minnesota, but instead ranges East of the range of E angustifolia (and SE of our research site). In the summer of 2018, we identified 96 flowering E. pallida plants with over 200 heads that were planted in a restoration at Hegg Lake WMA. Every year for the past several years, we have visited the E. pallida plants, taken phenology data, and chopped off their heads. We do this to prevent E. pallida from being a bad pollen source or sink for native E. angustifolia populations. We were able to do this early this year, as E. pallida flowers significantly earlier than E. angustifolia.
We went back to check if we missed any heads on in September and found 3. They were done flowering, but hadn’t dropped seeds. We collected those heads, and they are currently stored at CBG. We hope that we might be able to germinate them for tissue. We want to analyze the ploidy of pallida compared to angustifolia. We have sneaking suspicions that pallida may be tetraploid where angustifolia is diploid.
Start year: 2011
Location: Hegg Lake Wildlife Management Area restoration
Physical specimens: 200+ heads were cut from E. pallida plants and removed then composted. We brought three heads back with us to Chicago Botanic Garden.
Data collected: All pallida data is in demap
GPS points shot: We shot points for all flowering E. pallida plants.
Products: In Fall 2013, Aaron and Grace, externs from Carleton College, investigated hybridization potential by analyzing the phenology and seed set of Echinacea pallida and neighboring Echinacea angustifolia that Dayvis collected in summer 2013. They wrote a report of their study. Pallida counts are being somewhat incorporated into demap.
You can find more information about Echinacea pallida flowering phenology and links to previous flog posts regarding this experiment at the background page for the experiment.
Anna and Will decapitate a plant. It’s Echinacea pallida which is not native to Minnesota.
Echinacea pallidais an Echinacea species that is not native to Minnesota. In July 2017, we identified 100 flowering E. pallida plants with 222 heads that were planted in a restoration at Hegg Lake WMA. Every year for the past several years, we have visited the E. pallida plants, taken phenology data, and chopped off their heads. On July 7, 2017 when we collected the data, the maximum male row was 19, meaning flowering started about 19 days earlier–June 18, 2017. E. angustifolia in the remnants started flowering on June 24, about a week later. 17 of the 222 E. pallida heads were still buds on 7 July, so these plants would have continued flowering for awhile.
We went back to check if we missed any heads on 31 August and found two. They were done flowering, but hadn’t dropped seeds.
Physical specimens: 222 heads were cut from E. pallida plants and likely decomposed. We brought two heads back with us to Chicago.
Data collected: A csv in ~Dropbox/remData/105_assessPhenology/phenology2017 with tag, row number the male florets were at on July 7, 2017 for each head, and initials of the data collector.
GPS points shot: We shot points for the 100 flowering E. pallida plants.
Products: In Fall 2013, Aaron and Grace, externs from Carleton College, investigated hybridization potential by analyzing the phenology and seed set of Echinacea pallida and neighboring Echinacea angustifolia that Dayvis collected in summer 2013. They wrote a report of their study.
You can find more information about Echinacea pallida flowering phenology and links to previous flog posts regarding this experiment at the background page for the experiment.
E. pallida heads are easily distinguished from E. angustifolia by their white pollen and longer ray florets.
Echinacea pallida, an Echinacea species compatible with E. angustifolia, but not native to our study area, was planted at a restoration at Hegg Lake WMA. One trait of E. pallida may limit its potential to hybridize with E. angustifolia individuals is the synchrony of their flowering timing, or phenology. To study this, we have kept track of the start and end dates of flowering for Echinacea pallida individuals in the Hegg restoration plot since 2011. In 2016, we identified 66 flowering plants with 113 heads. Flowering began on June 18th. Then, around July 7th, we chopped off all the Echinacea pallida heads.
Physical specimens: 113 heads were cut from E. pallida plants circa 7 July 2016 (the last day of recorded phenology). These specimens were likely composted.
Data collected: We collected phenology data using handheld computers.
GPS points shot: We shot points for the 66 flowering E. pallida plants.
Products: In Fall 2013, Aaron and Grace, externs from Carleton College, investigated hybridization potential by analyzing the phenology and seed set of Echinacea pallida and neighboring Echinacea angustifolia that Dayvis collected in summer 2013. They wrote a report of their study.
You can find more information about Echinacea pallida flowering phenology and links to previous flog posts regarding this experiment at the background page for the experiment.
Echinacea pallida, a non-native Echinacea species that is compatible with E. angustifolia, was planted at a restoration at Hegg Lake WMA. One aspect of the potential that E. pallida has to interact with E. angustifolia individuals is the synchrony of their flowering timing, or phenology. To study this, we have kept track of the start and end dates of flowering for Echinacea pallida individuals in the Hegg restoration plot since 2011. In 2015, we identified 48 flowering plants with 139 heads. Flowering began on June 30th. Then, on July 15th, we chopped off all the Echinacea pallida heads. Before this date, 34 individuals flowered.
Flowering schedule and map of Echinacea pallida at Hegg WMA. Note the abrupt end of flowering on July 15th. Click to enlarge!
Products: In Fall 2013, Aaron and Grace, externs from Carleton College, investigated hybridization potential by analyzing the phenology and seed set of Echinacea pallida and neighboring Echinacea angustifolia that Dayvis collected in summer 2013. They wrote a report of their study.
