Solidago simplex (Rand’s goldenrod)

Rand’s goldenrod is a perennial North American native plant. For a comparison chart of some of the varieties of goldenrods, see Solidago.

Plants: 1¾–31″ (5–80 cm) tall. Smaller plants oocur in cooler climates. Each plant has up to 10 stems.

Leaves: Basal leaves are narrowly oblanceolate, and 1¾–4 ⨉ ⅛–⅝″ (5–10 cm ⨉ 5–16 mm). Their margins are serrate to crenate. Stem leaves are sessile and lanceolate to linear, and ⅜–1¾ ⨉ 1/16–¾″ (1.2–4.5 cm ⨉ 2–19 mm).

Flowers: 3 to 150 flowerheads, densely packed around the stem. Each composite flower is up to ⅛″ (3 mm) in size, and contains 6-16 yellow ray florets and 6-31 disc florets. The flowerheads are somewhat viscid-resinous—sticky—the most distinctive trait of this species. They appear from September to October.

Fruits: Flowers become small spherical arrangements of seeds on “parachutes,” called cypselae, like dandilions gone to seed. The cypselae are 1/16–⅛″ (1.9–3.2 mm) in diameter.

Habitats: Cliffs, balds, or ledges, mountain summits, and, shores of rivers or lakes.

Kingdom	Plantae	Plants, but not fungi, lichens, or algae (from Stearn's Botanical Latin)
Subkingdom	Tracheobionta	Vascular plants—plants with a “circulatory system” for delivering water and nutrients
Division	Magnoliophyta	Flowering plants, also known as angiosperms
Class	Magnoliopsida	Dicotyledons—plants with two initial seed leaves
Subclass	Asteridae	A large class that encompasses asters
Order	Asterales	Flowering plants with a central disk flower and surrounding petals, like daisies
Family	Asteraceae	The aster family, which also includes daisies and sunflowers; from the Greek ἀστήρ, “star,” for the star-shaped flowers
Genus	Solidago	From Latin solido, “to make whole or heal,” because it was believed these species had healing properties
Species	simplex	Simple, undivided, unbranched

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