'Yellow and Orange 



Now we leave the narrow, unbranched, wand golden-rods 

 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 Golden-rod (S. speciosa) displays its splendid, 

 dense, ascending branches of bloom from August to October. 

 European gardeners object to planting golden-rods, 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, west- 

 ward to Nebraska. 



When crushed in the hand, the dotted, bright green, lance- 

 shaped, entire leaves of the Sweet Golden-rod or Blue Mountain 

 Tea (5. 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. (Illustration facing p. 356.) i 



' The Wrinkle-leaved or Tall, Hairy Golden-rod 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 spread- 

 ing 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 Golden-rod (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 golden-rod blooms from July to September. 



The unusually beautiful, spreading, recurved, branching 

 panicle of bloom borne by the Early, Plume, or Sharp-toothed 

 Golden-rod 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 

 teaves, their sharp teeth slanting forward, taper into a broad peti- 



350 



