COMPOSITE FAMILY 



GOLDENROD 



Soliddgo 



Solidago from solidare, to join, or make whole, in 

 allusion to its reputed healing qualities. 



Perennial, native, erect herbs, bearing a wealth of 

 golden-yellow flowers. August-October. 



Stems. — Erect, sometimes woody at base, simple or 

 slightly branched. 



Leaves. — Alternate, simple, entire or serrate. 



Flower-heads. — Radiate-composite, yellow, in terminal 

 or axillary clusters. Ray-florets pistillate. Disk-florets, 

 mostly perfect, tubular, five-lobed. Involucre of ap- 

 pressed bracts. Receptacle small, not chaffy. Pappus 

 of many hair-like bristles. Akene, many-ribbed. 



The Goldenrods comprise a group of flowering 

 plants that, in early autumn, fling their magnificent 

 beauty of cloth of gold over the landscape from Maine 

 to Texas. 



The flowers are crowded in small radiate heads, 

 which are surrounded by an involucre made up of a 

 few more or less appressed scales. These heads 

 are clustered in many ways, sometimes in the axils 

 of the leaves, sometimes they make a panicle of little 

 racemes, sometimes a flat, irregular corymb. As the 

 flower clusters fade they become hoary, and the 

 seeds, tipped with fine, feathery hairs, are borne hither 

 and yon by the wind; and in winter often become 

 the main reliance of the birds. 



Most of the Goldenrods are September bloomers, 

 but a few are earlier. For example, Solidago juncea, 

 Early Goldenrod, in northern Ohio begins to bloom 

 in June. Its season runs from June to October. 



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