Travelling the Golden Highway

 

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In the past month I have driven from Texas to Maine for a family gathering in Prince Edward Island and now I am en route back to Texas via a daughter in Baltimore and one at the University of Illinois. Along the way, I couldn’t help but notice that the world is solidly Solidago.  Solidago, a genus in the Asteraceae family that has over 100 species that we know as Goldenrod, was our omnipresent roadside plant bringing its bright yellow cheer to every landscape. 

 

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When you see a plant that is that successful you have to wonder what its propagation secrets are.  Well, it must help to have thousands of seeds packed into each inflorescence (think plume of flowers) and each plant has multiple flower heads.  But it is also a plant that spreads by underground rhizomes.  There is the ticket.  It sends out clones of itself so that some huge patches of goldenrods may be a hundred years old and all started from the sire in the middle. 

 

And what a grand plant it is.  Considered to bring luck by some cultures, and venerated for its healing properties by many others.  A cure for: kidney problems, sore throats, toothaches, combating fatigue, urinary tract problems, congestion, laryngitis and on and on.  It seems it could put whole rows of CVS out of business.  It’s very name means “to heal, to make whole” and these are only the human uses.
 

Walk up to any batch of goldenrod and you will have an entomological lesson on your hands.  So many larvae of butterflies consider it the perfect host, bees love the compactness of its flower heads; one-stop shopping for lots of nectar, beetles forage on the plants, and then the predators of these insects lay in wait, often perfectly camouflaged.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps many of you have noticed those swollen stems that you often find on these plants. Those are made by gall flies if they are round, and gall moths if they are elliptical.  I imagine we have talked about galls before. The gall provides the perfect safe house for an insect to go through its stages of development undetected by predators.  Well, most of the time they are undetected.   The woodpeckers are on to them and if you find a gall with a sizable hole in it you know they never quite got past the juicy larvae stage.

 

 

When I was on the Cape I was thrilled to see the goldenrods on one hike we took were simply covered with American Bumblebees. To see so many of our native bees thriving was so encouraging.  You no doubt know the plight of bees so any good showing is cause to celebrate. 

 Last little botanical fact here before I let you return to your previously scheduled life.  Goldenrods are called ‘short day flowers”, meaning their signal to bloom is when the nights are longer than the days.  Ergo, late summer and fall is when they come into their glory. It is wonderful how nature keeps the larder going for insects through their year. 

Like the Irish blessing then,
 

“May the road rise golden to meet you,

May the wind be at your back,

And if your leg is broken

May a one-dog-open-sleigh help you to tack.”

And that is where our next blog will take us. How I “sailed” through this vacation with a wheelchair and my very compliant dog Tuck. At least I hope so, there are so many tales to tell, but, so little time, and at home, my deceased computer awaits burial. Rip Van Amish Winkle that I am, buying a new one may prove daunting. Till then, I shall be thankful for borrowed computers.  And I still have about 1,000 miles of “golden roads” ahead of me. I will be praying the real Irish blessing on the rest of my trip; May God hold me in the palm of his hands.