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Northeast Wetland Flora

Field Office Guide to Plant Species

Canada Golden-rod
Solidago canadensis L.

JPG -- Species Photo JPG -- Distribution Map

Family: Aster (Compositae)
Flowering: July-September
Field Marks: This golden-rod is recognized by its lanceolate, strongly 3-veined leaves, its hairy stem, its spreading inflorescence, and its flower heads up to 1/8 inch high.
Habitat: Old fields, roadsides, edges of woods.
Habit: Perennial herb from creeping rhizomes.
Stems: Upright, branched or unbranched, hairy except for the base, up to 6 feet tall.
Leaves: Alternate, simple, linear-lanceolate to elliptic, pointed at the tip, tapering to the sessile base, strongly 3-nerved, coarsely toothed, smooth or rough on the upper surface, hairy beneath on the veins, up to 5 inches long, up to nearly 1 inch wide.
Flowers: Few in heads, with many heads arranged on one side of a widely branched panicle, the branches hairy; heads up to 1/8 inch high; heads with 7-17 ray flowers and 2-9 disk flowers; bracts subtending the heads yellowish, narrow, pointed at the tip.
Sepals: 0.
Petals: 5, yellow, some of them united to form rays, others united to form short tubes.
Stamens: 5.
Pistils: Ovary inferior, hairy.
Fruits: Achenes hairy, up to 1/8 inch long.
Notes: In the northeast, authors recognize five varieties of this species which vary on the basis of stem and leaf hairiness and head size. This family is called Asteraceae by Gleason and Cronquist.

Previous Species -- Wreath Golden-rod (Solidago caesia)
Return to Species List -- Group 8
Next Species -- Willow Golden-rod (Solidago salicina)

U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/plants/florane/species/8/solicana.htm
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Page Last Modified: Thursday, 03-Aug-2006 11:39:25 EDT
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