09/30/2026
Wild Wednesday- Botanical Scapegoat
If you walk outside in September and October, you may begin to notice the bright yellow blooms of the goldenrod plants, sneeze, and blame the poor conspicuous blooms. Seasonal fall allergies are incredibly common, and many people only notice the large groups of goldenrod blooming on the roadsides, leading to the reasonable conclusion that that is our culprit. Goldenrod serves as a scapegoat for the real offender- ragweed.
Goldenrod (Solidago genus) flowers are yellow and fragrant in order to attract pollinators such as bees and butterflies to drink their nectar and move pollen around the fields. Because these plants are insect-pollinated, they have heavy, sticky pollen that stays on visiting insects. Their fragrance can cause some minor allergies, and people can be allergic to the pollen itself, but both of these require incredibly close proximity to the blooms. Avoiding directly sniffing goldenrod typically avoids any kind of reactions.
Ragweed (Ambrosia genus) flowers are incredibly small and seemingly uninteresting. Most species tend to have white, green, or purplish flowers that grow in small clusters at the end of the stem. They tend to be smaller than goldenrod plants and grow in the same areas. Ragweed are wind-pollinated flowers. This means they produce much more pollen that is much smaller and lighter than a similarly sized goldenrod plant would. This pollen floats on the breeze, hoping to land on an available ragweed flower to pollinate, but regularly landing on our faces, skin, and clothes. These tiny particles effortlessly float into our noses and cause the hay fever symptoms that we tend to blame goldenrod on.
One of the easiest ways to tell the two apart when they aren't fully blooming is by looking at the leaves. Goldenrod have long, narrow leaves with no lobes. Ragweed leaves are wider and lobed, making them look more complex. When blooming, goldenrod flowers are bright yellow, while ragweed is much less interesting.
