I looked up the photo of prairie sun and recognized it as one of the rudbeckias I've grown before. It does reseed, but you can expect variations in the gold and orange on the flower petals...the ring could be larger or smaller. You also will usually see the green cone, but there could also be a few brown ones, however this was a very small amount.

I think you should save the seeds and grow them out....I have several types of rudbeckias here, plain, two tones, and even a few fabulous multi-petaled gloriosa daisies. Sometimes they do cross and I see the gloriosa parentage showing up. All the seedlings have always grown to have big, sunny, gorgeous flowers.

If you grow out your prairie suns, it's likely that the seedlings will be mostly true to the parent plants. In the few that are different you can expect some variation in the amount of orange and gold on the petals, and maybe a few will have a brown or brownish-green cone. If you have other rudbeckias in the garden you may see some crossing, but whatever you get of the seedlings that don't flower true to the parent plants you'll still love.

Great question and, of course, a great answer. I was wondering the same myself with my wide variety of ruds. I love to harvest seed and share. It doesn't matter to me what they work out to be because they are all cool, but if I trade or send out, I like to be as accurate as possible.

Now if I could get my prarie sun/irish eyes to GROW! They don't seem to germinate as well as their darker eyed buddies.

When trading seeds collected from a "named" plant I like to describe them as OP--Open Pollinated. This way everyone knows that only Mother Nature was involved in the pollination. Using "OP" in a trade description can remove a LOT of possible stress.

I grew Prairie Sun and Cherokee Sunset from seed I bought last year....they bloomed and I collected seed. I winter sowed both....the Cherokee Sunset had phenomenal germination, but the Prairie Sun germination was very light in comparison.....I'm not sure why. I still got a few plants, but not the hundreds of seedlings I got from the Cherokee Sunset. We'll see how they turn out when they start to bloom. They are stunning, that is for sure.

~Deb

cherokee sunset is a beautiful rudbeckia. i have had 8 or so different "looks" from it over the past few years. differences in color and variations in the colors on the petals. they seem to last no more than 2-3 seasons for me, so seed collection is a great idea! prarie sun sis not germinate as well for me as cherokee sunset. i had high hopes for it :( also, herbstonne nitida (irish eyes) jsut died after 4 years :(