A tall, sunflower-like plant that grows at the edge of the woods; this one was growing where the woods met a parking lot at a park in Beechview.

Flowers. Heads on long terminal stalks; disk florets numerous, golden yellow; rays about 10 to 12, linear-elliptical, golden yellow, to orange at base, with two prominent and numerous lesser parallel ribs, very slight notch at end.

Leaves. Mostly smooth; undersides rough at edges; oval, pointed, toothed; lower leaves with nearly flat base, upper leaves more rounded; net-veined, with very strong ribs; opposite, but upper sometimes alternate; upper not quite sessile, lower on short petioles; dark green above, much lighter below.

Also called Bushy Goldenrod, Grass-Leaved Goldenrod, Fragrant Goldenrod, and probably any number of other names. This is one of the class of flat-topped goldenrods that most botanists now put in their own genus, Euthamia, rather than lumping them in with Solidago the way older botanists did. Identification is easy, because this is the only flat-topped goldenrod reported to grow in the Pittsburgh area. These plants were growing beside a shopping-center parking lot in Banksville, where they were blooming in the middle of August.

Flowers. Heads in irregular loose flattish cymes; individual heads small; with a sweet scent, like chrysanthemum.

Leaves. Linear, sessile, alternate; dark green above and below; with three veins, the central vein much the strongest; underside somewhat rough if rubbed toward stem.

Stem. Strong, resists bending; not quite smooth; about 3 feet high (a meter or so).

Gray puts this in the genus Solidago with the rest of the goldenrods. We turn to Britton, therefore, for a description of the genus and species:

EUTHÀMIA Nutt. Erect, paniculately branched herbs, perennial by long rootstocks, with linear or linear-lanceolate entire sessile 1-5-nerved punctate leaves, and numerous small heads of both tubular and radiate yellow flowers, clustered in the large cymose, convex or nearly flat-topped inflorescence. Bracts of the involucre obtuse, appressed, somewhat glutinous. Receptacle flattish, flmbrillate, or pilose. Ray-flowers pistillate, usually more numerous than the disk-flowers, the rays small. Disk-flowers perfect. Anthers obtuse at the base. Style-branches with lanceolate appendages. Achenes top-shaped or oblong, villous-pubescent. [Greek, referring to the clustered heads.]

Euthamia graminifòlia (L.) Nutt. BUSHY or FRAGRANT GOLDENROD. Stem glabrous, sometimes slightly rough above, 6-12 dm. high. Leaves numerous, linear-lanceolate, acuminate or acute at each end, 2-12 cm. long, 4-8 mm. wide, minutely rough-pubescent on the margins and nerves of the lower surface; resinous dots few; heads 4-6 mm. high, sessile in capitate clusters arranged in a flat-topped corymbose cyme; involucre ovoid-campanulate, its bracts oblong or oblong-lanceolate, slightly viscid; disk-flowers 8-12. In moist soil, fields and roadsides, N. B. to the N. W. Terr., Fla., Neb. and Kans. July-Sept.

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In Wild Flowers Every Child Should Know, Frederic William Stack gives us this description:

BUSHY, OR FRAGRANT GOLDEN-ROD

Solidago graminifolia. Thistle Family.

This species differs so much from the true Goldenrods, Solidago, with which it is classed, that many botanists regard it as the leading type of a separate and new genus, Euthamia, a Greek word referring to its clustered heads. The crushed leaves and flowers are fragrant. This, together with its flat top has often caused it to be mistaken for Tansy. Its slender, leafy, green stalk branches widely at the top. It is occasionally rough to the touch, and grows from two to four feet high. The long and very narrow grass-like leaves taper toward either end, and their margins are entire, but very rough. They are very small, and thin-textured, grayish-green in colour, and show three or five ribs. The flowers are very small and are closely grouped in small, round clusters at the tips of the projecting, wiry branches, which are so graduated in length as to form a flat-topped, flowering head. The whole top is very free and open, and has a neat, trim appearance. The flowers are light coloured, and have from twelve to twenty very short ray flowers. This plant is found in moist soil in fields and along roadsides, from July to October. It ranges from New Brunswick to the Northwest Territory, south to Florida, Nebraska, and Missouri.

This once-ubiquitous garden annual was out of fashion for decades, but is now making a comeback. It never really went out of style in old city neighborhoods where gardeners still grow their gardens from seed. It’s also happy to escape from gardens and go wild wherever it finds an opportunity. Here we see one that sprouted against the curb at the edge of a busy street in Beechview, where it found just enough soil to flourish and bloom in late July.

Gray does not list this species, so we turn to Williamson Nevin Geddes, who describes many commonly cultivated plants in his Brief Flora of the Eastern United States (1904).

ZÍNNIA, L. Annual or perennial, American, chiefly Mexican herbs, with opposite, mostly sessile and entire leaves, and solitary terminal heads of showy tubular and radiate, variously colored flowers. Disk flowers perfect, with 5 velvety lobes. Rays pistillate, persistent on the akenes. Involucral scales imbricated, in several rows. Receptacle conical or at length cylindrical, its chaff clasping the disk flowers. Akenes of disk compressed, their pappus of 1 to 2 awns; those of the rays 3-angled, without pappus.

Z. élegans, Youth and Old Age. L.  A Mexican annual, 1° to 3° high, the parent of most of the garden Zinnias, with ovate-elliptic, clasping leaves 2′ to 3′ long, peduncles longer than the leaves and smaller upward, and heads 2′ to 5′ wide. Rays reflexed, originally in a single series, purple or lilac, but by cultivation double and of nearly every color, except blue and green, from white to dark purple. Disk flowers originally yellow or orange, but in the double forms nearly or entirely wanting. Pales serrated. Akenes of disk 2-awned. July to Oct.

Like a punk dandelion. The leaves are shaped like dandelion leaves, but ringed with spines. The flower heads are like a slightly inebriated dandelion head, with its rays a bit ragged and unkempt. This plant grew in a corner of a front yard in Beechview, where it was blooming in early August.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

SÓNCHUS [Tourn.] L. SOW THISTLE. Heads many-flowered, becoming tumid at base. Involucre more or less imbricated. Achenes obcompressed, ribbed or striate, not beaked; pappus copious, of very white exceedingly soft and fine bristles mainly falling together. — Leafy-stemmed coarse weeds, chiefly smooth and glaucous, with corymbed or umbellate heads of yellow flowers produced in summer and autumn. (The ancient Greek name. )

Perennial, with creeping rootstocks; flowers bright yellow, in large heads.

S. arvénsis L. (FIELD S.) Leaves runcinate-pinnatifld, spiny-toothed, clasping by a heart-shaped base; peduncles and involucre bristly; achenes transversely wrinkled on the ribs. — Roadsides, fields, and gravelly shores, Nfd. and N. S. to N J., w. to the Rocky Mts., commonest northw. (Nat. from Eu.)

One of our most beloved wild flowers, the Purple Coneflower is at the eastern edge of its native range here; but ornamental plantings have made it a common sight, and from those ornamental plantings come seeds that reinforce the wild population. These plants grew in a clearing in Scott Township, where they were blooming in late July. Up close, the vivid red-orange of the disk florets is as striking as the bright pink-purple of the rays.

This is the Echinacea so much prized by herbalists for its supposed use against colds.

Gray describes the genus (which he lists as Brauneria) and the species:

BRAUNÈRIA Neck. PURPLE CONE-FLOWER. Heads many-flowered; rays mostly drooping, pistillate but sterile. Bracts of the involucre imbricated, lanceolate, spreading. Receptacle conical, the lanceolate carinate spiny-tipped chaff longer than the disk-flowers. Achenes thick, short, 4-sided; pappus a small toothed border.—Perennial herbs, with stout and nearly simple stems naked above and terminated by a single large head; leaves chiefly alternate, 3-5-nerved. Rays rather persistent; disk purplish. (Named, it is said, for Jacob Brauner, a German herbalist of the early part of the 18th century.) Echinacea Moench.

Rays purple, rose-color, or rarely white.

B. purpurea (DC.) Britton. Stem smooth, or in one form rough-bristly; leaves rough, often serrate; the lowest ovate, 5-nerved,veiny, long-petioled ; the others ovate-lanceolate; involucre imbricated in 3-5 rows; rays 15-20, dull purple (rarely whitish), 2.5-4.5 cm. long or more. (Echinacea Moench.) — Prairies and banks, from w. Pa. and Va. to Mich., Ia., and southw.; reported as adventive eastw. July.