{"id":1404,"date":"2012-08-16T10:26:07","date_gmt":"2012-08-16T14:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/?p=1404"},"modified":"2012-08-20T10:28:42","modified_gmt":"2012-08-20T14:28:42","slug":"dont-blame-goldenrod-for-hay-fever-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/2012\/08\/dont-blame-goldenrod-for-hay-fever-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t blame goldenrod for hay-fever season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Ken Moore<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Flora Columnist<\/em><br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_27417\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/?attachment_id=27417\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-27417\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27417\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Goldenrod-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Goldenrod-2\" width=\"400\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27417\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-27417\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Beautiful goldenrods, which don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cause hay fever, will brighten our roadsides through the fall. Photo by Ken Moore<\/p><\/div><br \/>\nPlease don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t blame hay-fever sneezes and stuffy noses on beautiful goldenrod.<\/p>\n<p>But before I go into that, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more about Chapel Hill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mystery tree. <\/p>\n<p>Last week, space did not allow for me to tell how John Eliadis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 dad also remembered there was a covenant issued that Chapel Hill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coastal redwood could never be cut. Obviously Duke Energy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s utility pruning crew didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know about that covenant when they performed their recent drastic pruning job on that tree.<\/p>\n<p>But Chapel Hill town forester Curtis Brooks, once a Coker Arboretum curator who credits W.C. Coker with planting that tree, is not familiar with such a town covenant. <\/p>\n<p>So emerges another mystery: What is, or was, that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no tree-cutting covenant?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hopefully someone in Chapel Hill government or a town historian will uncover the answer.<\/p>\n<p>Now back to hay-fever season. In spite of garden columns and articles in horticulture magazines during past decades, many of us still blame the fall season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s miseries on strikingly visible goldenrods.<br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_27424\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/?attachment_id=27424\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-27424\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27424\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/insects-on-goldenrod.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"insects-on-goldenrod\" width=\"400\" height=\"522\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27424\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-27424\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A closer look reveals a soldier beetle at top, unaware of the drama below, where a lynx spider has captured a hairstreak butterfly. Photo by Ken Moore<\/p><\/div><br \/>\nFor goldenrod pollen to get up your nose, a bee or butterfly or other pollinating insect will have to carry it there, so you may relax when you see or walk by goldenrods. Goldenrods were one of the first American plants carried back in the mid-1600s to English gardens, where they are still a perennial favorite in flower borders. <\/p>\n<p>Here we enjoy a long flowering season from more than 50 species of <em>Solidago<\/em>. Herbal fragrant goldenrod, <em>Solidago odora<\/em>, came into flower on Occoneechee Mountain in early July, and several other goldenrods have colored the roadsides since. Now the early tall goldenrod, <em>Solidago gigantea<\/em>, is beginning to bloom out at Mason Farm and along sunny roadsides. Late tall goldenrod, <em>Solidago altissima<\/em>, will continue the season into November.<br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_27418\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/?attachment_id=27418\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-27418\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27418\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/ragweed-and-goldenrod.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"ragweed-and-goldenrod\" width=\"400\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27418\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-27418\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ragweed (left) is difficult to discern from goldenrod (right). Photo by Ken Moore<\/p><\/div><br \/>\nRagweed, as the photo shows, often grows right next to goldenrod. Ragweed leaf margins are distinctly deeply lobed like marigold leaves and in contrast, goldenrod leaves have smooth (entire) or finely toothed margins. <\/p>\n<p>Ragweed flowers, without showy petals, are difficult to discern. They appear as a little candelabra of erect stems of countless pollen-bearing anther sacs held high above non-petaled female flowers in leaf axils on stems below. When fully mature the erect male candelabras are yellow with exposed pollen, waiting for the slightest breeze. These flowers are virtually unseen next to showy golden-yellow flower heads of goldenrods.<br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_27419\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/?attachment_id=27419\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-27419\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27419\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Ragweed-male-flowers-with-pollen.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Ragweed-male-flowers-with-pollen\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27419\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-27419\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hidden beneath green bracts, ragweed male flower pollen sacs here are about to explode, releasing clouds of pollen into the air. Photo by Ken Moore<\/p><\/div><br \/>\nWhen we sneeze and see goldenrods in flower, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to cast blame on the innocent, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s circumstantial evidence at best.<\/p>\n<p>Learn the difference, avoid the ragweeds and take a closer look at the goldenrods, where you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re likely to find interesting pollinators and tiny spiders hidden amongst the flowers awaiting their unsuspecting dinner visitors.<\/p>\n<p><em>Email Ken Moore at flora@carrborocitizen.com. Find previous Ken Moore Citizen columns at <a href=\"http:\/\/carrborocitizen.com\/flora\">The Annotated Flora<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ken Moore Flora Columnist Please don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t blame hay-fever sneezes and stuffy noses on beautiful goldenrod. But before I go into that, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more about Chapel Hill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mystery tree. Last week, space did not allow for me to tell how John Eliadis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 dad also remembered there was a covenant issued that Chapel Hill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coastal redwood [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,22],"tags":[615,151,994,120],"class_list":["post-1404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ken-moores-flora","category-summer","tag-goldenrod","tag-ragweed","tag-redwood","tag-solidago-gigantea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1404"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1406,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions\/1406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/flora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}