Rudbeckia 'Herbstonne' - What IS it really?
Google Rudbeckia 'Herbstonne'. I promise you will find endless repeated statements about it being a cultivar of R. laciniata, R. nitida OR a hybrid of the two. Never any written statement to justify why it's listed as one or the other or a mix of the two! As I really like this plant I of course had to know what its real identity is. I began to dig through the plants.usda.gov database where I saw pictures of R. nitida and realized R. 'Herbstonne' really looks nothing like it (to a plant geek at least). Then I realized that R. laciniata actually further breaks down into multiple varieties with a good bit of morphological variation, but this particular database didn't have enough info to learn how to differentiate them. Next, Google took me to eFloras.org which is home of plant identification keys for just about any plant you could think of. The level of detail in the keys borders on overwhelming even to a plant geek. I had to go back to Goog...