Tall goldenrod (Solidago altissima) lived up to its name near the Ashuelot River. It was a full head and shoulders taller than me. This is the time of year that goldenrods get blamed for everyone’s allergies, but pollen grains that cause hay fever symptoms are very small and dust like and carried by the wind. The pollen grains of goldenrod are very large, sticky, and comparatively heavy and can only be carried by insects. Even if you put your nose directly into a goldenrod blossom, it is doubtful that you would inhale any pollen.
Ragweed and many grasses on the other hand, are wind pollinated and release their pollen at about the same time that goldenrod blooms. These plants aren’t as showy as goldenrod however, so they escape notice. People focus their anger on what they see rather than the facts, and some refuse to accept the truth even when it’s right in front of them.
I think almost everyone knows what goldenrod looks like but not everyone has seen silverrod. Silverrod (Solidago bicolor) is in the goldenrod family and is also called white goldenrod. It is the only native white flowered goldenrod found in the northeast. Every single small flower in this photo has at least one ant on it.
I always find silverrod in dry, gravelly places at the edge of the woods at the end of August. It’s hard to get a photo of because it’s usually surrounded by other plants and rarely grows alone. It grows about knee high and isn’t seen anywhere near as often as the yellow goldenrods.
The flowers of false dandelion (Hypochaeris radicata) look much the same as those of true dandelions in a photo, but in the field they are much smaller and stand on 6-8 inch long, wiry stems. The plant is also called cat’s ear, possibly because of the bracts along its stem that look like tiny cat’s ears. I see them almost everywhere I go at this time of year. This one had a friend visiting.
Both dandelions and false dandelions have a rosette of edible leaves and a central taproot, bur the flower stems of false dandelion are solid, tall and wiry while those of true dandelions are hollow and much shorter. False dandelion leaves are also much smaller and narrower than the dandelion’s leaves. The plant is a native of Europe.
Though smooth gerardia (Agalinis purpurea) is also called false foxglove, I don’t see it. The flowers are tubular like foxglove but that’s where the similarities end. The flowers are much smaller than foxglove blossoms and point upwards instead of downwards like foxglove. I find gerardia every year on the flanks of Mount Caesar growing in hot, dry sand but these 1 inch long examples that grew along the Ashuelot River were twice as big.
I’ve never seen a foxglove blossom that looked like this. Two upper lobes, two side lobes, and a lower lobe spread from the mouth of a smooth gerardia blossom. The inside of each blossom is very hairy and has two yellow patches with dark purple spots that serve as nectar guides.
Nodding smartweed (Persicaria lapathifolia) gets its common name from its drooping flower heads and the very sharp, peppery taste of the stems, which makes the tongue smart. It doesn’t seem to bother ducks, geese, and all of the other animals that eat it, though. This is also called curly top smartweed; obviously because of the way the long flower spikes droop. It is originally from Europe.
Each nodding smartweed flower spike is made up of many pink to white, very small flowers. The flowers never seem to fully open, which can make it hard to count any of their reproductive parts, but each one has 5 sepals and no petals. There are also six stamens, two partially fused carpels and two styles.
It isn’t uncommon to see a carpet of knee high, white blooms in the woods at this time of year. White wood aster (Aster divaricatus) is known for its drought tolerance and will grow under a heavy leaf canopy. The stalked, coarsely toothed, heart shaped leaves help with identifying this plant.
The small, one inch flowers of white wood asters can have red or yellow centers. This aster is very easy to grow and makes an excellent choice for a dry shaded woodland garden. It is best used in mass plantings as the natural grouping in the previous photo shows. Many nurseries sell native plants grown from seed. Where I work they’re used as under plantings for lilacs, but the choice was theirs and the native plants moved under the lilacs completely on their own.
Pokeweed is just starting to set fruit. The name pokeweed comes from the Native American word for blood and refers to the red dye that can be made from the purple / black berries. The juice was used as a dye by the early colonists and they also used it to improve the color of cheap wine. All parts of the plant are considered toxic and should never be eaten unless you know exactly what you’re doing.
Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) flowers are about 1/4 inch wide and have 5 petal-like, rounded sepals. In the center of the flower are green carpels that come together and will form the berry. It happens quickly and you can find both flowers and fruit in all stages of growth on a single flower head (Raceme.)
A few posts ago blogging friend Rich asked if I knew an easy way to tell a Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) from a woodland sunflower. I told him that I didn’t and in fact had put all 70 species of Helianthus into my too hard basket, because many are so much alike that only an expert can tell them apart. But as it turns out that isn’t entirely true, because the Jerusalem artichoke is different than all the others and that makes identifying relatively easy.
Jerusalem artichoke grows in large numbers where the conditions are right. This large colony and several others as large grew along the edge of a forest. The Jerusalem artichoke isn’t an artichoke and has nothing to do with Jerusalem, and nobody seems to know how it came by the name. One theory says that the Puritans, when they came to the New World, named the native plant after the “New Jerusalem” they believed they were creating in the wilderness, but that’s just a theory.
Anyhow, it turns out that Jerusalem artichoke is the only Helianthus that has leaf stems (petioles) longer than a half inch and has wider leaves than other species. It also has a hairy stem, and those three things make it different from nearly all of the other Helianthus species.
I put this photo of a Jerusalem artichoke leaf here so we could see the difference between it and the leaves on the plant that follows.
I found this photo of a woodland sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) on Wikipedia and was surprised to see that it was taken by our old blogging friend Jomegat. I hope he doesn’t mind my using it, but I wanted to show the short leaf stems and smooth leaf edges on this plant. If you scroll up and down between this photo and the previous two the differences are easily seen.
Jerusalem artichokes were cultivated by Native Americans for thousands of years for their tuberous roots, which they cooked and ate much like we do potatoes. They are said to be starchy with a nutty flavor and they were immediately adopted by the early settlers. The tubers have fewer calories than potatoes and the plant’s carbohydrates and sugars can be assimilated by the digestive tract without insulin. This makes them an excellent choice for diabetics.
Yellow toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) is considered an invasive species but I don’t see it that often and when I do it’s in fairly small colonies of up to maybe a hundred plants. When the plant is grown under cultivation its flowers are often used as cut flowers and are said to be long lasting in a vase. It has been used medicinally in Europe and Asia. It always reminds me of snapdragons.
Fragrant white water lilies have bloomed in huge numbers this year; more than I’ve ever seen, and they still continue to bloom. Somehow they’ve moved into a pond where I’ve never seen them before and that’s where this one was. They’re beautiful things and I wouldn’t mind if they moved into all of our ponds.
We are beings who seek the infinity of beauty over the finitude of time. ~J.M. Campos
Thanks for stopping in.
I love goldenrod and its smell. I even picked some for a vase last time mad they lasted beautifully. Water lily is gorgeous.
Thank you. I like goldenrod too and grow some here.
It has been a real water lily summer. I’ve never seen so many!
Hmmm… methinks that’s Jerusalem Artichoke that we have in our garden, then.
Have you ever eaten the spuds? I seem to remember they taste a bit boring.
Thanks for rescuing the reputation of Goldenrod. It has taken a beating over the years.
There are something like 70 species of Helianthus, do you might have Jerusalem artichoke or one of the others. I’ve never tasted the roots but I’ve dug them for others. They’re good cold in a salad according to Laura’s comment.
Yes goldenrod always gets blamed for something it couldn’t do if it wanted to!
what a great variety of beautiful flowers, wonderful photos
Thanks very much Eddie.
When I saw my photo here, my first thought was “Allen’s photography skills are slipping!” Then I saw that it was mine.
And of course, if you’re brave enough to do so, I have absolutely no problem with you using it (or any of my images on WP).
I took that one with my first digital camera. I have learned a lot since then (such as “use the macro setting” and “flash isn’t that great for macro shots”).
I had to laugh at that comment! Actually the shot was perfect for illustrating the differences between the leaves and that was what I was looking for.
Yes, I started this blog with nothing but a cell phone camera, so I think we’ve both come a long way!
Many familiar plant faces in this post. The silverrod is new to me. I bought a goldenrod from a nursery just so I would have a bit of New England in my garden.
Poke was one of the springtime greens my father’s people foraged for in the Kentucky mountains. The short, new shoots in spring were considered edible, and since it grew in the northeast, he continued the practice there. I grew up eating them, although I would never advise anyone to hunt for them. All parts of the mature plant are definitely poisonous. I don’t know at what point or height the new growth develops toxins.
Hypochaeris radicata is one of the few regularly blooming plants in drought here, and honeybees are quite fond of it.
Yellow toadflax – I learned this one as a child by the name “Butter and Eggs”
I’m surprised that they’ll sell goldenrod in nurseries. I wonder how often misinformed allergy sufferers berate them for it.
I’ve known for a long time that people ate the new spring shoots of poke without apparent harm but I’ve never tried it. I never tell people here on the blog that they should eat any plants, but I do tell them that others have. I have to hope they’re sensible enough to not just go out and start eating plants.
We have more Hypochaeris radicata this year than I’ve ever seen and they do have bees all over them. I’ve noticed that they seem to close up on real hot dry days.
I’ve heard yellow toadflax called butter and eggs too. It’s probably a very old name for it.
Is the false dandelion the same as hawkweed? I tried growing woodland sunflower but found it unsatisfactory as a garden plant.
No, Hypochaeris radicata isn’t the same as hawkweed (Hieracium.) It looks quite a bit different and isn’t as hairy.
When I was growing up woodland sunflowers and Jerusalem artichokes were called “outhouse daisies,” perhaps hinting at where they should have been planted.
I was going to say that I had never heard of silverrod before, but I think that you may have featured it before. I do know this, that if I went looking for a plant named Jerusalem artichokes, I wouldn’t be looking for a plant that I could confuse with a wild sunflower. I thought that bird names were bad. 😉 Now I’m going to have to check the wild sunflowers that grow here to see if they are really Jerusalem artichoke. I know that the goldfinches love the seeds no matter which species they are.
I see no resemblance between foxglove and the gerardia either, but the gerardia is a pretty flower, and I love the color.
Thanks Jerry! I agree, Jerusalem artichoke sounds nothing like a sunflower! And how strange that nobody even knows how it got the name in the first place. Every single tall plant with yellow flowers that I checked here turned out to be Jerusalem artichoke and I was really surprised.
I agree with you on the gerardia. It packs a lot of pretty into a plant that’s no more than ankle high!
Your water lily is a real treat.
Thank you. I’m glad they seem to be having an extended blooming period this year.
The waterlily photo is so beautiful! I love the flowers on Jerusalem Artichoke and seeing them tells me that autumn is nearly here. I love eating the tubers too though they are not easy to come by. If I grew the plants I wouldn’t want to dig them up and lose the flowers!
I like the look of the smooth gerardia flowers and I agree, they don’t look much like foxgloves. What they do remind me of are the flowers of the Cape Primrose or Streptocarpus. Not the really fancy ones but the species plants.
Thanks very much Clare. I didn’t know you had Jerusalem artichoke there but I read that growing them has proven to be commercially successful in Europe, so they must sell the tubers there. Maybe they aren’t exporting them yet. I used to lift the plants just enough with a spading fork so I could get at the roots.
You’re right about the gerardia flowers resembling the cape primrose. I hadn’t thought of that!
I used to be able to buy the tubers with other vegetables but I haven’t seen them for quite a few years now. People grow them at home either for the tubers or just for the flowers which are so attractive. I will have to see if I can grow them next year and try to harvest the tubers without harming the plant!
Or just plant more!
Yes! 😀
Beautiful!!!
Thank you!
My grandmother had Jerusalem Artichokes in her garden. I loved them. We always ate them raw in a salad. I never knew they grew wild.
I used to work for people who grew them but I’ve never tasted them myself. I know where I could dig a truckload!
They grow all over the place here. In fact I tried to find a tall plant with yellow flowers that wasn’t a Jerusalem artichoke and couldn’t.
Reblogged this on Poltrack Pix and commented:
I shook some ragweed plants to photograph the avalanche of pollen grains against the sun. The photo was successful but I spent the rest of day with itchy eyes. I often have to explain to folks that goldenrod is not the problem.
Thank you John. I’ve had people tell me that I didn’t know what I was talking about, so I wish you luck!
The last two pictures that you posted are my favourites, I could almost smell the waterlily.
Thank you Susan. I wish you could smell it. It’s very hard to describe.