SOLIDAGO ULMIFOLIA. 
ELM-LEAVED GOLDEN-ROD. 
NATURAL ORDER, COMPOSITE. 
SOLIDAGO ULMIFOLIA, Muhlenberg.—Stem srnooth, the branches hairy; leaves thin, elliptical- 
ovate or oblong-lanceolate, pointed, tapering to the base, loosely veined, beset with soft 
hairs beneath; racemes panicled, recurved-spreading ; scales of the involucre lanceolate- 
oblong ; rays about four. (Gray’s A/anzal of the Botany of the Northern United States. 
See also Chapman’s /lora of the Southern United States, and Wood’s Class- Book of 
Botany.) 
O work professing to give a general view of the native 
p g 
flowers of the United States would do justice to its 
srofessiaas unless it had something to say of the Golden-rods, 
for they are among the most distinguished of American flowers. 
Everybody who knows anything of our wild scenery knows the 
Golden-rod; and no picture or description of an American 
autumn landscape would be complete without the Golden-rod as 
an essential part thereof. Our polite literature is full of 
allusions to this flower: the best remembered being perhaps 
that by Bryant in his “ Death of the Flowers ”— 
“The Wind flower and the Violet, they perished long ago, 
And the Briar-rose and the Orchis died amid the summer glow; 
But on the hill the Golden-rod, and the Aster in the wood, 
And the yellow Sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood, 
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plegue on men, 
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade and glen.” 
Our country is famous for the fading tints of its autumn foli- 
age; but the rich yellow flowers of the Golden-rod mixing with 
the falling leaves do much towards the reputation for unsur- 
passed beauty which American autumn scenery enjoys. There 
are nearly fifty different species in the genus, and with one or 
