Perennials, to 80 cm (roots fibrous). Stems moderately strigose (hairs ascending). Leaves: blades narrowly lanceolate to elliptic (grasslike, lengths 10+ times widths, not lobed), herbaceous, bases attenuate, margins entire, apices acute, faces glabrous or sparsely hirsute; basal petiolate or sessile, 10-25 × 0.5-1 cm; cauline sessile, 1-25 × 0.2-1 cm (distal smaller), bases attenuate. Heads mostly borne singly. Phyllaries to 1 cm (spreading to reflexed). Receptacles hemispheric to ovoid; paleae 4-5 mm, (apical margins glabrous) apices acuminate-cuspidate, awn-tipped, abaxial tips sparsely strigose. Ray florets 8-16; corollas orangish red to maroon, laminae elliptic to obovate, 10-25 × 3-6 mm, abaxially sparsely strigose. Discs 10-15 × 8-15 mm. Disc florets 50-300+; corollas proximally maroon, distally brown-purple, 3.9-4.4 mm; style branches ca. 1.8 mm, apices obtuse to rounded. Cypselae 2-3 mm; pappi coroniform, to 0.5 mm. 2n = 38. Flowering spring-fall. Wet, sandy flatwoods sites; 0-30 m; Fla. Rudbeckia graminifolia grows in the Apalachicola region.