Echinacea purpurea Funky White - Purple Coneflower

Echinacea purpurea 'Funky White' is a new variety of purple coneflower whose unusual flowering is reminiscent of certain African daisies. It offers bicoloured flowers with an unusual design, with white petals with a pink-violet base surrounding a cone adorned with a few rare thread-like and erect petals. Vigorous, resistant, and flowering from summer to autumn, it is a generous plant that is useful to birds and pollinators: it has its rightful place in a garden that embraces nature.

Native to the western United States, from Georgia to Michigan, passing through Oklahoma and Ohio, the purple coneflower is a perennial with a strong character, unlike anything known, but which boldly colonizes rocky meadows, savannas, open woodlands, and road edges in its natural habitat. It is a perennial plant with a root system, deciduous, whose vegetation dries up in winter.

'Funky White', recently obtained in the Netherlands, brings something new to this intrepid pioneer: the distribution of colours on the flower and the random presence of a few small erect petals around the central cone. The plant, endowed with beautiful vigour, has a bushy tufted habit, reaching 70cm (28in) in height and 40-45cm (16-18in) in width. On its erect, rigid, rough stems are arranged opposite, lanceolate, green leaves covered in rough hairs. The flowering period extends from July to September-October, accompanying all the summer flowers; it is highly visited by butterflies. The unbranched flower stalks are terminated by a solitary head inflorescence measuring 6-7cm (2-3in) in diameter, with a large and prominent central disk, initially olive green then brown-red. This central cone is surrounded by a few short and thin, erect, white-pink petals, followed by a row of slightly drooping ligules that are much more developed, white with a pink-violet base. The fruit is an achene that releases seeds which birds are fond of. This plant firmly and deeply anchors itself in the soil, thanks to its highly developed root system.

The 'Funky White' Echinacea, with its slightly exotic long flowering period, brings a lot of liveliness and originality to sunny borders. It is truly easy to grow in ordinary soil, and also thrives in flower beds and containers. It can be mixed with other Echinaceas ('Eccentric', 'Green Jewel') as well as yarrows, smaller-sized daisies ('Engelina', 'Princesse d'argent'), Echinops, summer asters in pastel colours. Lighten up the scene by mixing in some ornamental grasses like Stipa tenuifolia, Muhlenbergia capillaris, Pennisetum orientale 'Karley Rose'... Splendid in borders, the beautiful flowers of the 'Funky White' purple coneflower are also gorgeous in fresh or dried flower arrangements.

Properties: In homeopathy, its root is used to fight against colds and to strengthen the immune system. These properties were already used by Native Americans. The name Echinacea comes from the Greek echinos, which means "hedgehog-like," and acea, meaning "having the shape of," alluding to the flower heads. Purpurea means "purple."