I had a few odd looking blooms on my purples. At first I thought maybe it was Aster Yellows, but they looked more like something ate a few petals than the weird greening and double blooming that aster yellows seems to produce. These are plants I got free last summer and over wintered (someone was splitting some to clean up a garden bed beign overtaken). My "fancier" newer ones (Hot Papaya, Tiki Torch, Raspberry Truffle) all look fine (my possible Sunset Sky got munched on by ??? so now it's just leaves...which look fine). I read up on a mite of some sort that takes a shine to coneflower flowers and to cut them off and dispose of them asap (since the mite lives in the flower). Which I did. I should have taken pics first, but I wanted them GONE so they didn't spread. I haven't seen any others that look like those so far *knocks on wood*.

Does anyone have any good pics of mite infested echs? I think a lot of people are jumping to the conclusion that they have aster yellows whenever they see an off bloom and might be culling a mite infested plant....

I posted a link to the best article with pics I could find...and the mite infested blooms DO look superficially like aster yellows-without the "greening"

Here is a link that might be useful: Mites on Echs, article