Scientific name: Solidago flaccidifolia Small
Synonym(s): Solidago caesia L. var. paniculata Gray; Solidago gracilis Poir.
Common name: Mountain Goldenrod
Family: Asteraceae; Compositae
Flowering period: Fall
Habitat: limestone hills

Type locality: Hillsides Rome, Floyd County, Georgia
Herbarium specimens: The New York Botanical Garden, NY 22375.

Comments: Solidago flaccidifolia was described and published by John Kunkle Small (1869-1938). Small was a distinguished botanist, curator of New York Botanical Garden, and the author of Manual of the Southeastern United States ( 1933). According to Small, (1898) this specie was collected for the first time in Rome, Georgia by Alvan Wentworth Chapman (1809-1899) a physician and botanist from Apalachicola, Florida.

Descriptions:
1. "Perennial, glabrous below the inflorescence, bright green. Stems erect or ascending, 7-11 dm tall simple or nearly so, ridged, slightly zigzag: leaves alternate; blades elliptic, 6-15 cm long, thin, acuminate, sharply serrate above the cuneate base, sessile or nearly so: heads few in axillary clusters, short-peduncled, 4 mm high, clusters subtended by spatulate or elliptic-spatulate bracts: involucres campanulate: bracts linear, finely pubescent, obtuse, green or green-tipped: flowers 5-7, crowded: rays yellow, oblong or ovate-oblong, 3 mm long: achenes pubescent."- John K. Small, 1898.

Identification help: ”"Like so many others of the Southern States Solidago flaccidifolia will doubtless prove to be a local species. It is most closely related to Solidago pubens from which differs in the almost glabrous foliage, only the upper part of the inflorescence is pubescent and hairs are sparse, short and not spreading. The leaf-blades are larger and their margins are not toothed so far below the middle. The involucres are shorter than those of Solidago pubens and the bracts less densely pubescent and broader."- John K. Small, 1989.

2. “Stems 6-13 dm tall, angled, glabrous, simple or nearly so: leaf-blades elliptic-obovate on the lower part of the stem to elliptic above, 6-19 cm long, acuminate, coarsely serrate above the entire base, light green above, pale green beneath, glabrous: heads in axillary clusters: involucres campanulate, 3 mm high, about 2 mm thick; bracts obtuse: achenes pubescent.”- John K.Small, 1903.

References :
1. Small, John K. " Studies in the Botany of the Southeastern Unted States-XIV" Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, Vol. 25, No. 9. (1898) : 477-478
2. Small, John K. Flora of the Southeastern U.S.. New York, 1903: 1192.
3. The New York Botanical Garden Vascular Plant Types Catalog: (http://www.nybg.org/bsci/hcol/vasc/ ), New York Botanical Garden, 200th Street and Kazimiroff Boulevard Bronx, NY 10458
4. USDA, NRCS. 2006. The PLANTS Database, 6 March 2006 (http://plants.usda.gov). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

Last updated on January 27, 2008.

Botanical explorations in Floyd County, Georgia
Type specimens (1871-1902)