Tall Goldenrod

About the Tall Goldenrod

The great golden plume of the Texas fall, and one of the most important late nectar sources on the landscape - monarchs streaming toward Mexico tank up on it, alongside migrating queens, painted ladies, and a supporting cast of bees and wasps that treat every plume as a filling station.

Tall goldenrod earns the name, running three to six feet with arching sprays of hundreds of tiny golden florets from September into November. It spreads by underground rhizomes into bold colonies along fencerows and field edges, and old pastures can turn solid gold by October.

It also carries one of botany's most persistent bum raps: goldenrod takes the blame for fall allergies, but its pollen is heavy, sticky, and insect-carried - it barely floats. The real culprit is ragweed, blooming green and invisible beside it while goldenrod advertises. Blame the quiet one.

A goldenrod stand repays slow looking: crab spiders ambushing in the florets, soldier beetles pairing up, galls swelling on the stems, each one a winter meal some downy woodpecker will find. Shoot it against a north-blue October sky and the gold doubles.