The Blush of Fall

Plateau Agalinis, an Edwards Plateau endemic

Certain seasons bring to mind certain color palettes, such as the pastel-colored wildflowers of spring, or the deep orange and red leaves of fall.  But did you know that there are some native plants that bloom pink well into the months of autumn?  They include both Plateau and Prairie Agalinis (Agalinis edwardsiana and Agalinis heterophylla), Small Palafoxia (Palafoxia callosa), and Marsh Fleabane (Pluchea odorata).

Plateau Agalinis, also called Plateau False Foxglove and Plateau Gerardia, is a 1- to 3-foot tall erect, bushy plant with an airy texture that is endemic to limestone hills with thin soils on the Edwards Plateau region of Texas.  It has light green stems, narrowly linear leaves to 1.25 inches long, and pink funnel-shaped blooms from August to October, on stalks as much as 1.25 inches long.  

Plateau Agalinis, showing the long stalk

Also called Prairie False Foxglove, Prairie Agalinis looks very similar to Plateau Agalinis except that its pink funnel-shaped blooms are on short stalks up to 0.2 inches long and its leaves are slightly larger.  It blooms from June into October in grasslands and fields or in open woodlands near streams, often on more moist soils.  Both of these Agalinis species are in the Figwort Family, and are host plants for the Common Buckeye butterfly.

Prairie Agalinis, showing the short stalk

Common Buckeye adult

Common Buckeye caterpillar

Small Palafoxia or Small Palafox is a 2- to 3-foot tall upright, airy plant in the Aster Family, with sticky-hairy stems and solitary flowers on slender stalks that grows best in full sun on dry, gravelly soils.  Occurring from August to November, its half-inch wide pink blooms consist only of disk (not ray) flowers, and the narrow, linear leaves are covered in fine hairs giving it a gray-green appearance.

Small Palafoxia

Also called Sweetscent, Saltmarsh Fleabane, and Shrubby Camphorweed, Marsh Fleabane is an erect, branching plant to 3 feet tall, with simple toothed leaves, and dense, flat-topped clusters of pink flower heads from July to October.  It is in the Aster Family, and it prefers to grow at the water’s edge or in low drainage areas in moist soil.  It gets several of its common names from the sweet smell of the blooms and leaves, attracting many species of butterflies and bees.  It is also a host plant for several small moths, including the Southern Emerald.

Marsh Fleabane

Southern Emerald

As you walk the local trails, wander through the meadows, and explore the water’s edge during these weeks of cooler weather before the first frost, you just might come across the somewhat surprising pink blush of fall!

Beat the Heat

 

Flame Acanthus is a hot weather bloomer.

The heat of the Texas summer is enough to make everything wilt, but there are some native plant species that truly thrive in these unrelenting temperatures and drought-stricken conditions.  These plants include Turk’s Cap (Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii), Flame Acanthus (Anisacanthus quadrifidus var. wrightii), Violet Ruellia (Ruellia nudiflora), and Western Ironweed (Vernonia baldwinii).

Turk’s Cap, also known as Drummond’s Turk’s Cap, Wax Mallow, Mexican Apple, Manzanita, and Sleeping Hibiscus, is a spreading shrub to 4 feet high, with large green leaves on upright stems.  Bright red flowers atop the stems are twisted into a whorl from which protrude red stamens.  These flowers are a natural source of nectar for hummingbirds and butterflies, and it is a host plant for the Turk’s-cap White-Skipper butterfly.  The resulting fruit is red and marble-sized, and edible for animals and humans alike. Turk’s Cap is the perfect plant to grow under trees that tend to shade out non-native turf grasses, as they form a natural cover and provide much needed color from May all the way to November.

Turk's Cap

Turk's Cap fruit

Turk's-cap White-Skipper

An airy, spreading shrub to 5 feet tall, Flame Acanthus has tender lance-shaped green leaves and tubular red flowers that open to 4 lobes and occur along terminal spikes.  Blooming in full sun from June to October, it attracts both hummingbirds and butterflies, and is also known as Hummingbird Bush, Wright’s Acanthus, and Mexican Flame.  It is the host plant for the Crimson Patch, Elada Checkerspot, and Texan Crescent butterflies. The fruit is a small, hood-shaped capsule with seeds attached to a hooked stalk that helps to eject them from the capsule when it dries and splits open.

Flame Acanthus

Flame Acanthus seed capsule

Crimson Patch

Violet Ruellia is an erect herb that is woody at the base with few branches, growing to 2 feet tall.  The dark green leaves are oval-shaped, and the trumpet-shaped violet flowers at the ends of stalks open at sunrise and fall from the plant in early afternoon, from March all the way through October. Also called Wild Petunia, it does well in sunny areas and is a host plant for the Common Buckeye butterfly.  One of its’ subspecies is a host plant for the Malachite butterfly, a south Texas species rarely seen in central Texas.

Violet Ruellia

Common Buckeye

Often stout and forming colonies 5 feet high, Western Ironweed has hairy unbranched stems, large green leaves with serrated edges, and loose clusters of bright purple blooms at the apex of each stem.  From July to the first frost, these fuzzy blooms provide nectar for various types of pollinating insects and the seeds nourish several species of birds.  Also called Baldwin’s Ironweed, it is the host plant for the Parthenice Tiger Moth.  While this species’ growth can be aggressive, it flourishes if allowed to spread in larger, open, sunny areas.

Western Ironweed

These native species can (and often should) be pruned back in winter as they can get too leggy.  They have low water needs once established, and can tolerate hot temperatures and still continue to bloom.  They are the perfect plants to beat the heat, benefit our local wildlife, and provide much needed color in your own native summer garden!

Beguiling Bloomers

Pink Stonecrop

Springtime in Central Texas brings a host of familiar wildflowers blooming in meadows and woodlands, and along grassy roadsides. But each year the seasonal conditions may vary, based largely on the timing and amount of rainfall.  While many species are widespread from year to year, some appear infrequently, others only in certain habitats, and many go almost completely unnoticed.

Clasping Venus’ Looking-glass

Clasping Venus’ Looking-glass or Clasping Bellflower (Triodanis perfoliata) is a distinctive annual that can be found growing in open often disturbed areas, sometimes appearing even in cultivated flower gardens.  In April and May, violet-blue, 5 petaled, wheel- to bell-shaped flowers, 0.5 to 0.75 inches across, are set singly in the axils of rounded green leaves that clasp the erect, slender, unbranched stems.  Inconspicuous at 6 to 18 inches high, this species is differentiated from five other Triodanis species found in Texas by its almost circular, toothed, clasping leaves.

Pink Stonecrop, also called Widow's Cross

Pink Stonecrop or Limestone Stonecrop (Sedum pulchellum), is a low-growing, apparently rare annual found on rocky ground in full sun, often among cactus and other Sedum species. Smooth, stem-clasping, cylindrical pale to lime green leaves (often with a reddish tinge), to 1 inch long, are densely arranged along the ascending to spreading stems.  These stems are topped with horizontally branched inflorescences that bloom from March to May, with numerous 4-petaled, pale pink flowers, to 0.5 inches across.  The petals are arranged in a cross-like pattern, giving rise to its other common name of Widow’s Cross. The Travis County population of this species, most often found on hilltops in the Bull Creek watershed, is disjunct by over 150 miles from other more eastern and northern populations, and likely represents the southwestern limit of its native distribution.

Heller's Plantain

Highly overlooked but quite common is Heller’s Plantain or Cedar Plantain (Plantago helleri), an erect annual that grows only in Central to West Texas and in southern New Mexico, typically in shallow, stony soils and on limestone bedrock exposures. From March through May, this species displays unusual, slightly overlapping flowers clustered at the top part of each stalk.  The flowers are quite small at 0.25-inches wide, with 4 off-white, nearly translucent petals that have a dark red center.  The stalks, to 10-inches high, arise from narrow, linear, basal leaves, to 8-inches long, and both stalks and leaves are softly hairy.  This species is can be commonly found along gravelly roadsides, and it is one of the host plants for the beautiful Common Buckeye butterfly.

Common Buckeye

Each spring, remember to look beyond the bluebonnets, paintbrushes, firewheels, and Mexican hats and take a closer look, because you just might be rewarded with one of these beguiling little bloomers!

Frost Flowers

Blooming from August to November, Frostweed provides late season nectar
and a unique surprise at the first frost.

Accompanying the crunching of fallen leaves and the rattling of seed pods drying in the breeze is the arrival of the first frost.  This marks the seasonal change from our relatively warm autumn to the cooler days of a mild central Texas winter.  How does frost, this sparkling layer that sometimes covers the fall landscape, form? 

When the temperature of the air reaches a point where the water vapor in it can condense out into water, it is called the dew point.  The frost point is when the dew point falls below freezing, and rather than producing dew, it creates frost.  Consisting of tiny, spike-like crystal structures called spicules that grow out from a solid surface, frost generally forms on surfaces that are colder than the surrounding air.  Even the size of the crystals can vary, depending upon the amount of time they took to grow, the relative changes in temperature, and the amount of water vapor available. 

A frost flower.

Cold air is denser than warm air, so quite often lower areas become colder on calm nights due to differences in elevation.  Known as surface temperature inversion, this phenomenon forms ‘frost pockets’ or areas where frost forms first, due to cold air trapped against the ground.  It is here, in these areas, that you can find a rare and wonderful spectacle of nature called ‘frost flowers.’

While many plants can be damaged or killed by freezing temperatures or frost, this varies by the type of plant and tissue exposed to these conditions.  In central Texas, there is a common plant called Frostweed (Verbesina virginica), which is found in low-lying areas near streams, creeks, canyon bottoms, and in dappled shade at woodland edges. 

Bordered Patch

Silvery Checkerspot

Much of the year, Frostweed goes unnoticed while it grows 5 to 8 feet tall and leafy, the top of each stalk crowned by a cluster of small white flowers.  Its stalks are oddly square-like, with fleshy green flanges. Frostweed begins to bloom in the August heat, and continues until first frost, well into the fall.  These flowers provide late-season nectar for many insects, including bees, beetles, flies, wasps, and even migrating hummingbirds and Monarch butterflies.  It is also a host plant for Silvery Checkerspot and Bordered Patch butterflies.

A patch of frost flowers.

With the first frost, however, the water contained in each Frostweed plant stem expands, causing the stems to crack.  Via capillary action, more water is drawn through the cracks, freezes when it hits the cold air, and forms long curls of ice like petals of a flower, ribbons, or other delicate, abstract sculptures.  Most often, they consist of longitudinal bands of fine ice threads at right angles to the stem.  These delicate flowers of the frost are fleeting in nature, and can only be found in early morning, as the rising temperature quickly melts them away. 

A prime example of crystallofolia.

Only a few species of plants exhibit this unique phenomenon, which has been called ‘crystallofolia’ by Bob Harmes at the University of Texas, from the Latin crystallus or ‘ice’ and folium or ‘leaf’.  Much is left to be discovered reading the purpose of this process, but further research by Dr. James Carter at Illinois State University has concluded that the ice formation often far exceeds the amount of moisture locally available within the plant’s stem, so it must be augmented by water drawn up from the roots.

Delicate curls can form when more plant moisture is available.

On the surface, fall may seem as if nature is shutting down for the winter, but take the time for a second look and you just might be surprised.  The first frost of the season is another intriguing part of the ongoing cycle of life and renewal for our native plants and animals.

Blue Beauties

Blue Curls, Phacelia congesta

Spring brings a festival of color to our landscape in the form of wildflowers, mostly in shades of red, yellow, orange, purple, pink, and white.  But the most infrequent color of them all is blue.  There is no true blue pigment in plants, so they don’t have a direct way to produce blue color.  Plants have to perform a sort of trickery to produce blue blooms, using a common plant pigment called anthocyanin.  Plants have evolved to tweak their normally red to purple anthocyanin pigments by naturally modifying pH and then mixing those pigments, and combined with the way natural light reflects, these factors result in the creation of blue flowers.

Dayflower, Commelina erecta

Aside from the well-known bluebonnet, there are other blue beauties in bloom this time of year, including Dayflower (Commelina erecta), Blue Curls (Phacelia congesta), and Texas Bluestar (Amsonia ciliata).  Dayflower is a 3-foot high perennial with soft jointed stems that grow upright only if supported by other plants.  It blooms from May to October, but most frequently in spring or fall. The flowers are about 1 inch across, with two larger showy blue petals and one much smaller white petal.  Lasting only a day, several of these ephemeral blooms occur on one plant, generally one at a time, each opening 3 to 4 days apart.  Often found growing in dry scrub and partly shaded woods, its other common names include Widow’s Tears and White-mouth Dayflower.

Blue Curls, also known as Caterpillars, Fiddleneck, or Spike Phacelia, is a leafy annual or biennial that grows 1 to 3 feet tall in sandy or rocky soil.  Its periwinkle blue, bell-shaped flowers are ¼ inch long and occur in numerous slender, coiled clusters that uncurl as the buds develop, resembling the suckered underside of an octopus tentacle.  Its leaves are soft and deeply cut, often appearing ragged, borne on a brittle stem.  Blooming from March to May, Blue Curls is often found in large colonies in meadows and woodland edges.

Texas Bluestar, Amsonia ciliata

Growing up to 2 feet tall, Texas Bluestar blooms from March to June in dry open woods and on chalky hills.  Its narrow almost needle-like leaves occur singly but close together all long the stem up to the flower cluster.  Every cluster is made up of few to numerous pale blue flowers, each ½ inch long and wide, with a narrow tube opening into 5 petal-like lobes shaped like a star, with a ring of white at the center.  It is also known as Fringed Bluestar, referring to the fringe of small hairs found on the new leaves and plant stems. 

Less than 10 percent of the more than 280,000 species of flowering plants on Earth produce blue flowers.  Interestingly, while blue did not develop as a common color during the process of natural selection, plants that have blue blooms don’t seem to deter beneficial pollinators.  Both birds and insects can widely detect blue wavelengths, and blue flowers are just as capable of producing food as flowers of other colors. 

Night Bloomers

Berlandier's Trumpets

Many night blooming flowers have white or light-colored blossoms, a strong fragrance (although not always to human noses), and open by night and close by day.  These flowers are extremely important nectar sources for pollinators, and they are attracted to these flowers’ nectar mainly by scent.  Two of our best night blooming native plants are Berlandier’s Trumpets (Acleisanthes obtusa) and Jimsonweed (Datura wrightii).

Closeup of Berlandier's Trumpets

Also known as Vine Four O’Clock, Berlandier’s Trumpets is an upright perennial herb or climbing vine up to 6 feet long, easily controlled but often clambering over shrubs and small trees if left unchecked.  Its opposite, bright green leaves are triangular shaped, about 1.5 inches long, with slightly wavy edges.  But it is its white to light pink trumpet-shaped flowers, about 2 inches long, that bloom from April to December, producing a fragrant scent when open at night.  Berlandier’s Trumpet does well in full sun to part shade, is drought tolerant, and easy to grow and maintain.

Jimsonweed

Jimsonweed is a 3 to 6 foot tall stoutly branched herb, with alternate, coarse, large gray-green leaves that are broad at the base and pointed at the tip.  While its foliage is often described as rank-smelling, its flowers are sweetly fragrant white trumpets, up to 8 inches long, sometimes tinged with purple at the edges.  It blooms from May to November, and its flowers open in evening and close during the heat of the day.  

Jimsonweed Bloom

The fruit of this plant is a very distinctive spiny, globular capsule up to 1.5 inches in diameter, which opens fully when ripe.  Jimsonweed has several other common names such as Sacred Thorn-apple, Angel Trumpet, Devil’s Trumpet, and Sacred Datura. Some of these names refer to its use as a hallucinogen in Native American ceremonies, but it is important to note that all parts of this plant are toxic to humans.

Jimsonweed Fruit

Both of these native night blooming species attract several species of Sphinx moths (sometimes known as hawkmoths or hummingbird moths) as well as other pollinating insects such as long-tongued bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.  But it is the Jimsonweed that has mastered the art of mutualism, with its partner the Carolina Sphinx.  

Carolina Sphinx

While it is common for this plant to benefit from its relationship with the Carolina Sphinx (Manduca sexta) in the form of pollination, in turn it provides nectar for the adult moth and is the host plant for the moth’s caterpillars.  These large caterpillars (known to gardeners as ‘tomato hornworms’), consume many or all of the Jimsonweed’s leaves. But the plant is prepared for the attack, storing resources in its massive root enabling it to produce more leaves for the next generation of caterpillars.  In effect, Jimsonweed grows its own pollinators to ensure its reproductive success!

Early Spring Heralds

Windflower, typical white form

February is a time of change in Central Texas, with temperatures often ranging from the 30s to the 70s, and it is precisely these large swings in temperature that create challenges for local wildlife. Finding food is essential, and the little things like insects that emerge in early spring rely heavily on the early bloomers in our native landscape.

Elbowbush

Elbowbush (Forestiera pubescens), also commonly called Stretchberry or Spring Herald, is a multi-branched deciduous shrub with smooth gray bark, long arched branches, and light green leaves.  It is most conspicuous, though, in late January and early February, when small, yellow-green, petal-less flowers begin to burst in small clusters on the bare twigs. Common in open woodlands, brushy areas, and near streams, its early flowering period provides nectar for native bees and spring butterflies, namely Gray, Juniper, and Great Purple Hairstreaks.  Elbowbush gets its common name from branches that typically form in right angles to one another, reminiscent of a bent elbow.  It produces a quarter-inch, fleshy, dark blue fruit often devoured by wildlife in the summer, and its leaves turn a unique chartreuse color in the fall.  Additionally, Elbowbush is one of the larval food plants for the Incense Cedar Sphinx (Sphinx libocedrus). 

Two-flowered Anemone, exhibiting side stem

Poking their colorful blooms above the drab winter landscape are two species in the Buttercup Family,  Two-flowered Anemone (Anemone edwardsiana) and Windflower (Anemone berlandieri). While both of these plants bloom from February to April, Two-flowered Anemone is an uncommon plant that is also called the Edwards Plateau Thimbleweed, since it grows only in this region of Central Texas.  Windflower is common and has a more widespread range, and is often called Southern Anemone or Tenpetal Anemone (even though it can have 10 to 20 petal-like sepals).

Two-flowered Anemone, deep blue form

Two-flowered Anemone grows 6 to 12 inches tall, and is most often found on the moist banks of shaded canyons.  Midway or further up the stem are three bracts, with side stems growing from those bracts, and each side stem can produce 1 to 3 flowers, with only 1 flower on the main stem. In reality, most plants carry only 2 or 3 flowers in total, each 0.5 to 1.25 inches wide and typically white, but can exhibit pink, lavender, light blue, or deep blue. In comparison, Windflower grows 6 to 15 inches tall, with low-lying leaves that are divided into three segments and are often reddish-purple on the underside.  Its single stem carries only 1 flower, 0.75 to 1.5 inches wide, and it can exhibit the same range of colors as the Two-flowered Anemone. 

Windflower, pink form

Windflower, light blue form

Found on the moist soils in shaded canyons in the southern half of the Hill Country, Golden Groundsel (Packera obovate) is a rosette-forming perennial that blooms from February to April. Slender flowering stems rise up to 18 inches above the basal rosette of oval leaves, topped with yellow flower clusters few to many-headed, with each flower 0.5 to 0.75 inches wide.  Once established, this plant colonizes quickly, and can create an early-blooming, evergreen ground cover in shady, woodland areas.

Golden Groundsel

Why not plant some these early bloomers in your landscape, as they not only provide early nectar for bees and butterflies, but they are also heralds of our coming spring!

Whorled Wonders

Great Plains Ladies Tresses

The spiral, which is a fundamental form in nature, is most splendidly illustrated in a genus of wild, native orchids called Spiranthes.  Commonly known as ladies tresses, the genus name comes from the Greek speira meaning ‘coil’ and anthos meaning ‘flower’, and refers to each species spirally arranged inflorescence.  The most predominant species of orchid found in Texas prairies, several members of this genus are colonizers of sparsely vegetated areas, appearing on newly disturbed sites such as roadsides and cleared fields, increasing in number until outcompeted by other vegetation.

Of the 15 native Spiranthes species in Texas, several are so similar in appearance that either a hand lens or microscope is often needed to distinguish one from another. To add to the confusion, many closely related species are also known to hybridize. However, Central Texas, the most common include the Great Plains Ladies Tresses (S. magnicamporum) and the Nodding Ladies Tresses (S. cernua).  

Great Plains Ladies Tresses has 2 to 4 narrow, grass-like basal leaves, up to 6 inches long, that are usually absent or withering during the flowering period.  The flower spike can range from 4 to 24 inches tall, and is made up of 12 to 54 small white tubular fragrant flowers, tightly or loosely spiraled, that nod abruptly from the base.  Blooming from September to November, it prefers calcareous grassland habitat, often growing in association with our native Seep Muhly.  In wet years, this orchid may appear in robust spikes numbering in the hundreds, and in dry years it may not flower at all.

Nodding Ladies Tresses has 3 to 5 narrow, grass-like, basal leaves, 8 to 10 inches long, and are typically present at flowering.  It has a flower spike that can grow from 4 to 19 inches tall, and consists of 10 to 50 small white tubular flowers, tightly or loosely whorled in 2 to 4 rows along the upper portion of the stem.  Blooming from late September through November (and sometimes even into December), it can grow on wet or dry sites, but prefers more acidic, sandy soils.

Flowers of Spiranthes orchids begin opening at the bottom of the inflorescence.

Like most orchids, the flowers of these Spiranthes species are resupinate, or twisting during development into an upside-down position.  In fact, the tendency of the flowers to droop slightly gives the Nodding Ladies Tresses both its common and species name, for cernua comes from the Latin and means ‘drooping.’  Unlike other closely related species, the flowers of the Nodding Ladies Tresses have little or no fragrance, but like other closely related species, the flowers are pollinated by bumblebees.  As with most Spiranthes, bumblebees start at the bottom and move upward on the inflorescence in search of nectar. Older flowers at the base of the flower stalk have more nectar, which makes them an efficient first stop for the foraging bumblebees.

As mentioned above, many Spiranthes are difficult to identify to species, and both the Great Plains Ladies Tresses and the Nodding Ladies Tresses are no exceptions.  In fact, Nodding Ladies Tresses is known as a compilospecies, which is defined as a genetically aggressive species that incorporates the heredities of a closely related species by hybridization through unidirectional gene flow, and may even completely subsume that species over time.  Now that’s a whorled wonder!

Fields of Gold

Cooler temperatures and shorter days mark the onset of autumn, and the golden colors of the season begin to surround us.  Among the amber and scarlet hues making an appearance in the landscape, one cannot help but notice three of our most common fall-blooming native plants: Goldeneye (Viguiera dentata), Zexmenia (Wedelia acapulcensis var. hispida),  and Prairie Goldenrod (Solidago nemoralis).  

A member of the sunflower family, Goldeneye is a bushy, drought-tolerant, multi-branched plant that tends to grow in colonies, providing rich swaths of golden color along our roadsides and in open areas.  It has narrow leaves and numerous 1.5 inch daisy-like flowers at the tips of long, slender stalks.  Growing to 3 feet tall in full sun or up to 6 feet tall in partial shade, this plant is native not only to Texas but to Arizona and New Mexico as well.  It prefers relatively dry, partially shaded areas such as woodland edges and open prairies, and in Mexico is also known by the common name Chimalacate.  



Goldeneye

The mid to late fall blooms of Goldeneye not only provide seasonal color, but provide for native wildlife as well.  Goldeneye is a larval food plant for both the Bordered Patch and Cassius Blue butterflies, and if spent flower stalks are left to stand through most of the winter, they will provide good seed forage for Lesser Goldfinches and other birds.  Infusions of this plant are still used today as an antibacterial treatment for baby rash.  


Often called Creeping-oxeye or Hairy Wedelia, Zexmenia is a small shrub 8 inches to 2.5 feet tall, that blooms continuously from May to November, although often most profusely once the weather has cooled.  The woody stems and rough-hairy green foliage give rise to showy, 1 inch wide butterscotch-orange flowers on long stems that extend vertically above the pointy-lobed leaves. Hardy, long-lived, long-blooming, and non-aggressive, this drought-tolerant plant appreciates full sun and dry, well-drained soils.  It is another host plant for the Bordered Patch butterfly, a nectar source for many species of butterflies, and its seeds are a favorite food of bobwhite quail.

Zexmenia

Prairie Goldenrod, also called Gray Goldenrod or Field Goldenrod, is a slender-stemmed plant 1.5 to 2 feet tall, that blooms from June through October.  A member of the aster family, it has thin, coarsely-toothed leaves and yellow flowers that are borne on the upper side of hairy stalks, arching out and downward to create a vase-shaped flower cluster.  Individual plants bloom at various times, extending the flowering season, but they are most noticeable in fall, especially when paired with purple Gayfeather and red Autumn Sage.  An excellent addition to a wildflower meadow or a sunny garden, Prairie Goldenrod is naturally found in dry, open woods and upland prairies, and does well in full sun to part shade. A carefree plant, it can become invasive if left alone, but is also easily controlled.  



Prairie Goldenrod

Of special value to bees and butterflies for its pollen and nectar, and to several species of finches for its seeds, Prairie Goldenrod was also used by Native Americans to treat jaundice and kidney disorders, and as a wash for burns and skin ulcers.  The Navajo burned the leaves as incense, and used the seeds for food.



As you wander along roadways and pathways this fall, admire these fields of gold that delight not only our senses, but provide a bountiful harvest for our wild neighbors as well!