Goldenrod - Solidago

Monarchs must nectar prolifically to build up the lipid bodies that will both get them through their winter hiatus and fuel their breeding flight in the spring. Autumn migrants must therefore balance their imperative to get on with the trip against the equally pressing need to feed continually. I know the feeling. ~ Robert Michael Pyle, Chasing Monarchs

What’s in a name: Goldenrod; Solidago > to make whole or solid; linked to its use as a medicinal plant; New genus: Oligoneuron

All in the family: Asteraceae

Common name in Mexico: Vara de oro

State flower: Kentucky, Nebraska

It’s a fast food café - - - for 100 beeellion paying customers: For a variety of insects shopping for nectar and pollen, and willing to pay for it in pollination services, goldenrods offer copious amounts of nectar to swallowtails, common sulphurs, American coppers, gray h a i r s t r e a k s , s k i p p e r s , a n d checkerspots as well as short and long-tongued bees, flies, wasps and beetles. Perhaps the migrating monarch benefits most from the nectars of this wonderful plant.

A toast to the coast: Coastal Seaside goldenrod - Solidago sempervirens is one of the best fall nectar p lants for migrat ing monarch butterflies along the eastern sea coast, especially near the Cape May Bird Observatory.

Golden arches: Goldenrod is one of the great honey plants in North America. It produces large quantities of golden pollen for nature’s critters and is pollinated by over 100 species of insects.

A million little pieces... of pollen: In summer and fall, the most prolific producers of powdery pollen grains are the Ragweeds ( A m b r o s i a s p p . ) N O T t h e goldenrods!... In one season, ragweeds are reputed to produce over a billion pollen grains per plant!

B u t w h o g e t s t h e b l a m e ? Goldenrods get the blame since they are the showiest of the fall flowers at that time. The greenish blooms of ragweed are rarely noticed even though they are the primary culprit of the wind-dispersed pollen.

Photo by Ina Warren

The important sound of children’s laughter: An herbal tea containing goldenrod was given to young children in the Mesquaki tribal community who had not yet learned to talk or laugh. This was so she or he “would grow up with their faculties intact.” Not a bad idea for us moderns to consider the importance of laughter...

Clone, clone on the range: A patch of goldenrods is more likely to be a colony of fibrous individual stems (ramets) than individual plants. The roots likely exude allelopathic chemicals to discourage plants in the area from competing with the goldenrods.

Ring around the ramets: It’s not unusual to have older plants in a clone patch die out and be survived by the extending ring of ramets radiating out from that center, leaving the impression of a fairy ring. Look for them when out for a walk in the summer and fall.

Aqui, aqui: In order to set fertile seeds, insects are necessary to effect cross-pollination. A stem can produce 10,000 winged seeds called achenes.

W a s t i n ’ a w a y a g a i n i n Solidago-ville: All you need is a patch of soil and sun for these lovelies. Roadsides, power line and railroad rights of ways are ideal sites [& plentiful] for goldenrods.

On Golden Wand: Thomas Edison developed a technique to extract latex from goldenrods. Harvey Firestone collaborated with Edison in making a set of goldenrod tires. Henry Ford used the tires for his personal touring hot-golden-rod car, a Model A.

Tea and Sympathy: Goldenrod leaves were used by colonists to make “Liberty Tea” after the taxing tea party in Boston harbor.

Caterpillar Café:A large number of butterfly and moth larvae feed on the foliage

When these [goldenrod] flowers transform whole acres into "fields

of the cloth-of-gold," the slender wands swaying

by every roadside, and purple asters add the final

touch of imperial splendor to the autumn landscape, already glorious

with gold and crimson, is any parterre of Nature's garden the world around more gorgeous

than that portion of it we are pleased to call ours?

– Mrs. Neltje Blanchan, 1900

It’s a galled world, after all: An insect that frequently forms spherical galls in the stems is the Goldenrod Gall Fly (Eurosta solidaginis). It is the midge larvae that cause the stems to swell.

That’s gall, folks!

A natural history/meditation from “Monarchs and Milkweeds Almanac” by Ina Warren

For range maps, see: http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=SOLID