Silverrod

Solidago bicolor, the silverrod or white goldenrod, is a perennial herb in the daisy family (Asteraceae) and the only widespread eastern North American goldenrod with white rather than yellow ray florets. It occurs from Nova Scotia and Quebec south through New England and the Appalachians to Georgia and Mississippi, and west to Wisconsin, growing in dry open woodland, rocky slopes, sandy clearings, and acidic pine barrens. Plants produce one or several erect, finely grey-hairy stems 30-90 cm tall arising from a short, somewhat woody rhizome. The leaves are alternate, simple, elliptic to oblanceolate, the basal and lower stem leaves 5-15 cm long with winged petioles and finely toothed margins, the upper leaves becoming smaller, narrower, and entire. The inflorescence is a narrow, dense, leafy-bracted thyrse 10-30 cm long, not the open one-sided panicle of most goldenrods; flowers are crowded in small heads each with 7-10 short white or cream ray florets surrounding 3-7 pale yellow disc florets. The involucral bracts are imbricate, dry, and pale. Achenes are short-hairy with a white capillary pappus.