Swamp sunflower

Canada lily (Lilium canadense) is the best native lily most gardeners have never grown, and the honest reasons for that are worth stating before the flowers are. It is genuinely uncommon in the nursery trade, it takes several years from seed to a flowering bulb, it resents being moved once settled, and in the wild it is going backwards. Wikipedia records heavy white-tailed deer browsing in developed landscapes as a population pressure, and both the Native Plant Trust and Utah State University Extension name a second and newer one: the lily leaf beetle (Lilioceris lilii), a Eurasian scarlet beetle established in North America since 1943 and now in nine provinces and fourteen states, has been recorded feeding on Canada lily specifically. Its larvae are the destructive stage and they feed under a shield of their own wet excrement, which is both the identifying feature and the reason people miss them until the stem is skeletonised. Set against that, the plant itself is superb. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center describes a 3-to-8-foot stem carrying tiers of flat, whorled, lance-shaped leaves and up to twenty nodding flowers in June and July, yellow on the outside and reddish-orange with dark spots inside, each hanging on a long arching pedicel. Go Botany names the ruby-throated hummingbird as its pollinator, which is exactly what a nodding, long-nectaried bell with recurved tepals is built for. Two practical facts separate it from the tulips and daffodils it shares a bulb bench with. Its bulb is a naked stack of loose scales with no papery tunic, so it dries out in storage and must go straight into the ground. And it is a stem-rooting lily - the Flora of North America treatment records stem roots present and often very many - so it is planted deeper than its own size suggests, which is the difference between a plant that persists and one that quietly declines. Note also that Missouri Botanical Garden's Plant Finder, primary source for most records in this catalog, carries seventy-eight Lilium entries and no page for this species, so this record is built on the Wildflower Center instead.

A tall native eastern North American perennial with deeply-lobed foliage and bright-yellow drooping ray flowers around a green central cone in midsummer through fall. Spreads vigorously by rhizomes; site where colony formation is welcome. Among the most cold-tolerant native rudbeckias.

A native upright perennial of east-central NA wet meadows producing dense purple flower spikes that bloom top-down in late summer - among the most reliable monarch-migration nectar plants in the eastern flora. NC State documents goldfinches feeding on the seeds with enthusiasm, plus two specialist moth larvae (Liatris flower moth Schinia sanguinea and Liatris borer moth Carmenta anthracipennis). Native stem-nesting bees use the dead winter stems.

A tall native eastern US perennial with deep purple-magenta flower clusters in late summer - among the most striking color in the native fall meadow palette. Tall and tolerant of wet feet; pairs visually with joe-pye weed + goldenrod for an iconic eastern wet-meadow trio.

A tall native northern + central North American perennial with whorled foliage on purple-spotted stems and broad rounded clusters of mauve-pink flowers in late summer. More cold-tolerant + moisture-loving than sweet Joe-Pye weed (E. purpureum); ideal for cold-climate rain garden + wet-meadow plantings.

A tall native perennial wildflower of moist meadows and woodland edges across eastern North America, producing large domed clusters of vanilla-scented pink-purple flowers in late summer - among the most reliable late-season nectar sources for monarchs, swallowtails, skippers, and native bees. Formerly classified as Eupatorium purpureum.

A continuous-bloom native pollinator strip for eastern North America. Covers spring through frost with host + nectar plants spanning monarchs, native bees, hummingbirds, and specialist Lepidoptera. Little bluestem provides the matrix grass + Hesperiidae host.