Garden Pests and Diseases: Why do some blooms on my Coneflower have NO petals?, 3 by nutsaboutnature

nutsaboutnature wrote:
Hi,
I mistakingly posted a similar question quite a while ago on the Coneflower forum, but no one responded.

Just today a member said they thought it might be Aster Yellows so I searched both DG and other sources for pictures. None of the pics look like mine as they all have some sort of definite distortion (blooms growing off of other blooms, etc.).

Even though the season is winding down and my Coneflowers have mostly been blooming nicely, I decided to try posting here since, if it is Aster Yellows, I should probably do something about it.

My Coneflower plant looks perfectly healthy and is growing quite normally. The only thing that seems abnormal is I have seedheads here and there that grew with NO petals. This is the first year I've seen this.

Below are a few pics taken early in the season. The plant is full of blooms now, but most of them are starting to wane. I leave the seedheads for the Goldfinches to eat.

I'm also curious if the plant needs to be removed and if so, are the seeds and/or roots still good and is the soil still safe to plant in? Also would the seeds be safe for the Goldfinches to eat?