SUMMER'S ON THE WANE WHEN GOLDENROD BLOOMS

CANADA GOLDENROD: A LARGE, SPREADING PERENNIAL PLANT...

...PLUME OF SMALL YELLOW FLOWERS..

...LONG, NARROW, SMOOTH LEAVES

Sunday, 8:30 AM.  69 degrees F at the ferry dock, 64 on the back porch.  Wind NE, calm with some light gusts.  The sky is mainly clear, the humidity 78%.  The barometer is falling, now at 30.09",  predicting unsettled weather with significant rainfall for the week ahead.  But today is a nice summer day.

   When goldenrods begin to bloom, the summer is on the wane.  Canada goldenrod, Solidago canadensis, in the Sunflower Family (Compositae), is one of the easiest to identify of the seventy-five plus species in the genus, most of which are native to North America but many of which, Canada goldenrod specifically, have spread as invasive species throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

   Goldenrods hybridize readily and are a  nightmare even to taxonomists, who's mission in life is to study complicated things and complicate them even further.  There are only a half-dozen or so that I recognize readily and I simply lump the rest together.  

   Canada goldenrod will grow almost anywhere except very dry or very wet areas.  It is quite attractive and sometimes grown in the garden, but it spreads and takes over.  Some ornamental goldenrods are less aggressive than the species and are welcome in cultivation. As wild plants goldenrods are an attractive plant of late summer and fall.  They are often blamed by hay fever sufferer's for their allergies, but they are insect rather than wind pollinated so they are not guilty in that regard.
   Dried S. canadensis has been used in herbal medicine as a diuretic in the treatment of gout and kidney stones, and as a wash for eczema and other skin irritations, and the genus name alludes to that fact in a roundabout, Latinized way.