Along shady roadsides, and in moist woods and thickets, from August to October, the BLUE-STEMMED, WREATH or WOODLAND GOLDENROD(S.caesia) sways an unbranched stem with a bluish bloom on it.
It is studded with pale golden clusters of tiny florets in the axils of lance-shaped, feather-veined leaves for nearly its entire length.Range from Maine, Ontario, and Minnesota to the Gulf States.None is prettier, more dainty, than this common species.
In rich woodlands and thicket borders we find the ZIG-ZAG or BROAD-LEAVED GOLDENROD (S.flexicaulis; S.latifolia of Gray) its prolonged, angled stem that grows as if waveringly uncertain of the proper direction to take, strung with small clusters of yellow florets, somewhat after the manner of the preceding species.But its saw-edged leaves are ovate, sharply tapering to a point, and narrowed at the base into petioles.It blooms from July to September.Range from New Brunswick to Georgia, and westward beyond the Mississippi.
During the same blooming period, and through a similar range, our only albino, with an Irish-bull name, the WHITE GOLDENROD, or more properly SILVER-ROD (S.bicolor), cannot be mistaken.Its cream-white florets also grow in little clusters from the upper axils of a usually simple and hairy gray stem six inches to four feet high.Most of the heads are crowded in a narrow, terminal pyramidal cluster.This plant approaches more nearly the idea of a rod than its relatives.The leaves; which are broadly oblong toward the base of the stem, and narrowed into long margined petioles, are frequently quite hairy, for the silver-rod elects to live in dry soil, and its juices must be protected from heat and too rapid transpiration.
In swamps and peat bogs the BOG GOLDENROD (S.uliginosa) sends up two to four feet high a densely flowered, oblong, terminal spire;its short branches so appressed that this stem also has a wand-like effect.The leaves, which are lance-shaped or oblong, gradually increase in size and length of petiole until the lowest often measure nine inches long.Season, July to September.Range, from Newfoundland to Pennsylvania and westward beyond the Mississippi.
Now we leave the narrow, unbranched, wand goldenrods strung with clusters of minute florets, which, however slender and charming, are certainly far less effective in the landscape than the following members of their clan which have their multitudes of florets arranged in large, compound, more or less widely branching, terminal, pyramidal clusters.On this latter plan the SHOWY or NOBLE GOLDENROD (S.speciosa) displays its splendid, dense, ascending branches of bloom from August to October.
European gardeners object to planting goldenrods, complaining that they so quickly impoverish a rich bed that neighboring plants starve.This noble species becomes ignoble indeed, unless grown in rich soil, when it spreads in thrifty circular tufts.
The stout stem, which often assumes reddish tints, rises from three to seven feet high, and the smooth, firm, broadly oval, saw-toothed lower leaves are long-petioled.Range, from Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, westward to Nebraska.
When crushed in the hand, the dotted, bright green, lance-shaped, entire leaves of the SWEET GOLDENROD or BLUE MOUNTAIN TEA (S.
odora) cannot be mistaken, for they give forth a pleasant anise scent.The slender, simple, smooth stem is crowned with a graceful panicle, whose branches have the florets seated all on one side.Dry soil.New England to the Gulf States, July to September.
The WRINKLE-LEAVED or TALL, HAIRY GOLDENROD or BITTERWEED (S.
rugosa), a perversely variable species, its hairy stem perhaps only a foot high, or, maybe, over seven feet, its rough leaves broadly oval to lance-shaped, sharply saw-edged, few if any furnished with footstems, lifts a large, compound, and gracefully curved panicle, whose florets are seated on one side of its spreading branches.Sometimes the stem branches at the summit.
One usually finds it blooming in dry soil from July to November, throughout a range extending from Newfoundland and Ontario to the Gulf States.
Usually the ELM-LEAVED GOLDENROD (S.ulmifolia) sends up several slender, narrow spires of deep yellow bloom from about the same point at the summit of the smooth stem, like long, tapering fingers.Small, oblong, entire leaves are seated on these elongated sprays, while below the inflorescence the large leaves taper to a sharp point, and are coarsely and sharply toothed.In woods and copses from Maine and Minnesota to Georgia and Texas this common goldenrod blooms from July to September.
The unusually beautiful, spreading, recurved, branching panicle of bloom borne by the EARLY, PLUME, or SHARP-TOOTHED GOLDENROD or YELLOW-TOP (S.juncea), so often dried for winter decoration, may wave four feet high, but usually not over two, at the summit of a smooth, rigid stem.Toward the top, narrow, elliptical, uncut leaves are seated on the stalk; below, much larger leaves, their sharp teeth slanting forward, taper into a broad petiole, whose edges may be cut like fringe.In dry, rocky soil this is, perhaps, the first and last goldenrod to bloom, having been found as early as June, and sometimes lasting into November.Range, from North Carolina and Missouri very far north.
West of the Mississippi how beautiful are the dry prairies in autumn with the MISSOURI GOLDENROD (S.Missouriensis), its short, broad, spreading panicle waving at the summit of a smooth, slender stem from two to five feet tall.Its firm, rather thick leaves are lance-shaped, triple-nerved, entire, very rough-margined, or perhaps the lowest ones with a few scattered teeth.
