This rarely seen in cultivation, herbaceous perennial, deserves to be grown more widely as it produces unusual pollen and nectar rich flowers at the end of the season, when they are really needed.
Native to the central USA, this tall perennial provides not only intense late season colour, but lots of pollen and nectar for visiting bees and butterflies.
Distinguished from other forms of Vernonia by its narrow, fine foliage, V. lettermannii is also smaller in scale and more rounded due to the number of stems produced in each clump.