troney's Identifications

These healthy looking dwarf coneflowers puzzled me, as i haven't come across them with such short and sideways-tending flower stalks. I have found R. tagetes growing close by, so wondered if there might be some hybridization going on. Indeed, Tropicos cites hybridization between these Ratibida species [http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=1280070].
A thesis on the subject concluded, however, that intermediate phenotypes can be displayed by newly germinated R. columnaris when under water stress [https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/ttu-ir/bitstream/handle/2346/60748/31295007284465.pdf?sequence=1].