Black-eyed Susans and ox-eye daisies are markers of my youth, when i found them in the meadows where lightning bugs claimed summer evenings with their roving flashing lanterns. Birds, butterflies, and bees benefit from their ample stores of pollen, nectar, and seeds. They are also a traditional medicine, concoctions of the roots used by Indigenous peoples for earache, worms, and other maladies. Easy to grow and a generous self-sower where happy.