All along our Park, sprays of pink, orange and white flowers are bursting into bloom. With bright, daisy-like petals and spiny, dome-shaped heads, your Park’s Echinacea—commonly called coneflowers—are some of our most iconic summer-bloomers!
The colorful varieties adding cheer to our flower beds include Kim’s Knee High, which feature gently drooping pink petals and a copper-orange cone and Magnus coneflowers that bloom rosy purple. White Swan coneflowers bring daisy-like whimsy with white petals and a copper-green central cone, while the Tiki Torch variety earns its namesake with bright orange blooms.
These adaptable flowers can withstand whatever our busy summer waterfront brings their way—humidity, heat, no matter! Their hearty two-to-three-foot-tall stems will continue blooming until September. And these flowers aren’t just popular with Park fans—look closely at their cones and you’re likely to find feasting butterflies!
Echinacea is prized not only for its sunny blooms, but also its medicinal uses. Indigenous to North America, the plant was used by various Native American tribes to treat an array of ailments, especially to fight infection. Today, Echinacea is widely used to ease cold and flu symptoms and shorten their duration and is recommended by herbalists as a general immune system booster.
You can find these useful, colorful flowers throughout our parklands, but they’re especially plentiful in our Tribeca plant beds and the Habitat Garden in Chelsea. Watch their stems dance in a Hudson River breeze, or catch a butterfly enjoying a snack, and you’ll see why coneflowers are such a Hudson River Park summertime favorite!