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Native Plant Society of Texas

Clear Lake Chapter

Plant of the Month: Mexican Hat

Presented by Casey Holley
April 2022

Botanical name: Ratibida columnifera
Common names: Upright Prairie Coneflower, Mexican Hat, Prairie Coneflower, Long-headed Coneflower, Thimbleflower
Family: Asteraceae (Aster)

[MUS—EASY AND FUN]

[CASEY] Hi everyone. I’m doing the plant of the month. It is Ratibida columnifera or better known as the Mexican Hat flower.

To identify it, there are some characteristics that we can look at. It’s a perennial and the Aster family. It usually grows up to one foot tall, but can reach up to three feet in height. The flowerheads sit atop long leafless stalks.

The petals on the flowers are three to seven drooping rays that range from dark red and yellow in color to all red or all yellow. The central disk is red brown in color, and it protrudes a half an inch to two inches above the drooping petals.

It is branched and leafy in the lower section. The leaves are feathery and deeply cleft, and it has a tap root.

The growing conditions. The flowers of very drought tolerant. They withstand competition. They require lots of sun and soil that drains really well. It’s usually calcareous. Limestone based or any loamy type of soil. It grows aggressively and may push out other weaker species. It’s easy to grow from seeds. It often blooms by the thousands, as we see in this photo here.

The native range is from Canada to central Mexico. Its naturalized in much of the contiguous U.S. and southern Canada. It grows in prairies, plains, meadows, pastures, savannas and roadside green spaces. Pretty much anywhere.

Natural benefits. It attracts a large number of native bees. The nectar is beneficial for bees, butterflies and other insects. The seeds are good for granivorous birds. The flower is beneficial for deer, and the foliage has a strong odor that actually repels deer. And so, they eat the flowers, but not the greenery.

For food, beverages can be made from the leaves in to, like, teas. The tea from the leaves can also be medicinal. With the stalks for stomach aches and, like, side pains. Tea from the flowers can be used for headaches and boiled leaves and stems can be used as a wash for snake bites and Poison Ivy.

[MUS—AND THAT’S IT]

Related Posts

Plant of the month for August is Splitbeard Bluestem, Andropogon ternarius, and also called Feather Bluestem or Paintbrush Bluestem. It is a native. It's a warm season grass. It's a perennial. It's a bunchgrass. By warm season, it means that it's dormant in the winter and starts growing in the spring as the weather warms up. A bunchgrass tends to stay in a small circle or a bunch. The grass has numerous thin basal leaves, which usually stay about 12 or 15 inches tall, which makes it ideal in our home landscapes. It grows best in part shade to full sun. And this grass will be available at our plant sale on October 20 and 21. It prefers to grow in sand or well-drained soil, which we kind of struggle with here, but it does do well. It's shade tolerant and drought tolerant. I know the camera has a hard time focusing on those light hairy little seeds. The bloom time is from August to November. In late summer, it will send up its bloom stalk, which may be up to three feet tall. And, as the seeds on the long slender stalk mature, they'll split into two tiny stems about two inches long, each with seeds of fluffy white tufts. The seeds are wind distributed. The plants may be started from seed or another way is to dig your mature plant and with your shovels, cut it into maybe four sections, which then can be replanted in other places in your yard or shared with some of your neighbors. It's an easy plant to grow. Splitbeard can be found on the prairie with Little Bluestem and it's great when it's seen in the afternoon sun en masse; reminds me of snowflakes on the branches. And it can be used in a winter dried arrangement in the house. Native bees can use Splitbeard Bluestem for nesting materials. And until their bloom stalk is sent up, the narrow basal leaves are hard to distinguish from other bunchgrasses such as Sideoats Grama. And there it is. And you note how the seeds are all on one side, thus its name. We don't have any of this one for sale at our fall sale. Maybe we will in the spring, in April. But it was interesting, I thought, when I looked for Splitbeard Bluestem in the Wasowski book of Native Texas Plants these two bunchgrasses were on the same page. So, that is the story of the Sideoats Grama and the Splitbeard Bluestem.

Plant of the Month: Woolly Bluestar

February 15, 2023

Our Plant of the Month for February 2023 is Amsonia tomentosa, commonly known as Woolly Bluestar, Woolly Amsonia, Small Leaved Amsonia, or Gray Amsonia.

Oyster Mushroom

Plant of the Month: Oyster Mushroom

January 9, 2023

Our plant of the month for January isn’t a plant at all, it’s a fungus!
Botanical name: Pleurotus ostreatus
Common name(s): Oyster Mushroom, Pearl Oyster Mushroom

About the Region

2026 Fall Symposium Logo

This low-elevations region of Texas extends inland from the barrier islands, about 60 or so miles, and stretches from Brownsville to Louisiana. In total, it covers about 9.5 million acres, with a high point of 150 feet in elevation. More than 1000 species of plants can be found in this region. On the southern end, species more common in Mexico (such as Sabal mexicana) and Central America occur.

The barrier islands provide us with dune systems, and clay flats to the inland side, which have species found in these areas alone. Many plants here, such as Ipomoea pes-caprae (beach morning glory), can be found throughout tropical regions of the globe. I’ve encountered the same species on the beaches of Guam.

Once inland, vast marshes and wet prairies occur. Occasionally, oak (Quercus fusiformis) groves can be found. Common grasses include species of Bothriochloa, Paspalum, and Sporobolus; eastern gamagrass (Tripsacum dactyloides); and switchgrass (Panicum species). Many rivers and creeks cut through the Gulf Prairies, and along these riparian areas various species of trees, Sabal minor, and other plants adapted to clay soils can be found. Due to overgrazing, farming, and fire suppression, woody species such as mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) and huisache (Acacia farnesiana), and invasive species such as chinaberry (Melia azedarach), Brazilian pepper (Schinus terebinthifolius), and Chinese tallow (Sapium sebiferum) have increased and displaced our native flora.

Source: Wildflowers of Texas by Michael Eason