106 SOLIDAGO ULMIFOLIA.—ELM-LEAVED GOLDEN-ROD. 
two yellowish-white exceptions are all of them yellow; but they 
vary very much in habit and in the arrangement of the flowers, 
so that though the Golden-rods are everywhere in our autumn 
fields and forests, there seems to be an unending variation in the 
effect they produce; and the impression to the novice in their 
study is that there are even a greater number of species among 
them than is actually the case. 
Though so numerous in America, they are represented also in 
Europe, but only by a single species—the Solidago Virga-aurea 
—long known to the people of the Old World as the “ Golden- 
rod,’ a name which has come with the emigrant to the New 
World, and has thus been given to the whole family, though few 
of them have that virgate or rod-like character which suggested 
the name for the original species. An old herbalist tells us “it 
is called in Latin Virga aurea, because the Stalks, being reddish, 
make the bushy tips of the Flowers seem as if they were of a 
Gold-yellow, and in English it is called Golden-rod.” It is how- 
ever interesting to note that though there is only one species 
indigenous to Europe, that one species, Solidago Virga-aurea, is 
also a true native of the northern regions of our own continent. 
Another interesting fact in their geographical relationship is that 
notwithstanding their great number—nearly half a hundred spe- 
cies—in the Atlantic portion of the United States, they almost 
disappear as they approach the Pacific Ocean, only seven spe- 
cies being described in Brewer and Watson’s “ Botany of Cali- 
fornia.” 
To show how rapidly our knowledge of the Golden-rods pro- 
gressed, it may noted that in a copy of Gronovius’ “Flora Vir- 
ginica” before us, issued in 1762, there are but three species 
described. Muhlenberg in his catalogue (1813) enumerates 
forty-three, and for the whole of North America, Nuttall notes 
but forty-nine in 1818; while now before us is a copy of Wood’s 
« Class-Book,” in which are described forty-eight east of the 
Mississippi alone. Some of these indeed may be regarded in 
time as mere varieties of others, for in these days, as our know- 
