A more contemplative sort of goldenrod. Its showier cousins brighten fields and meadows, but the Wreath or Blue-Stemmed Goldenrod is happiest in an open woodland, thriving in deeper shade than almost any other other fall flower. Its arched stems of golden flowers have a restrained elegance that seems appropriate to the dim religious light of the woods. This plant grew beside a forest path near West Newton.

From Gray’s Manual of Botany: S. caesia L. Smooth; at length much branched and diffuse; leaves lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, serrate, pointed, sessile; heads in very short clusters, or somewhat racemose-panicled on the branches. Deciduous woods, s. Me. to Ont., Minn., and southw. Aug.-Oct.