Goldenrods are the bees’ best friends. This one, which was blooming in late September, grew in front of a corrugated steel fence near a disused railroad siding in Oakmont. It may be common to the point of superabundance, but there is no more elegant wild flower than Canada Goldenrod.

From Gray’s Manual of Botany: S. canadensis L. Stem rather slender, 0.3-1.5 m. high, glabrous at least below, often minutely pubescent above; leaves narrowly lanceolate, thin, glabrous above, minutely pubescent on the nerves beneath, mostly sharp-serrate, the middle ones 6-13 cm. long, 5-18 mm. wide; heads tiny, crowded in recurved racemes and forming dense broadly pyramidal panicles; pedicels strongly pilose; involucral bracts linear, mostly attenuate, greenish-straw-color. (Var. glabrata Porter.) Thickets and rich open soil, Nfd. to N. Dak., s. to W. Va. and Ky. July-Sept.

Also called “Daisy Fleabane,” “Fleabane Daisy,” “Plains Fleabane,” “Prairie Fleabane,” and probably many other names. Pittsburghers usually call them “little daisies.” Old herbal legend has it that dried plants repel fleas. Fleabane is very common around here; if it were not, it would be treasured as a garden ornamental. It blooms for a good bit of the summer; these were blooming in late August at the edge of a back yard near Export. The seventh edition of Gray lists this as Erigeron ramosus, though the sixth had listed it as E. strigosus.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

ERIGERON L. FLEABANE
Heads many-flowered, radiate, mostly flat or hemispherical; the narrow rays very numerous, pistillate. Involucral bracts narrow, equal, and little imbricated, never coriaceous, neither foliaceous nor green-tipped. Receptacle flat or convex, naked. Achenes flattened, usually pubescent and 2-nerved; pappus a single row of capillary bristles, with minuter ones intermixed, or with a distinct short outer pappus of little bristles or chaffy scales. Herbs, with entire or toothed and generally sessile leaves, and solitary or corymbed naked-pedunculate heads. Disk yellow; rays white, pink, or purple. (The ancient name presumably of a Senecio, from er, spring, and geron, an old man, suggested by the hoariness of some vernal species.)

E. ramosus (Walt.) BSP. (DAISY F.) Stem panicled-corymbose at the summit, roughish like the leaves with minute appressed hairs, or almost smooth; leaves entire or nearly so, the upper lanceolate, scattered, the lowest oblong or spatulate, tapering into a slender petiole; rays white, twice the length of the minutely hairy involucre. (E. strigosus Muhl.) Fields, etc., common. June-Oct. Stem smaller and more simple than the preceding [E. annuus], with smaller heads but longer rays. Var. DISCOIDEUS (Robbins) BSP., with the rays minute, scarcely exceeding the involucre, occurs in s. N. E. and N. Y.

Rivals Canada Goldenrod for sheer yellow spectacle, but comes out in October and into November, after the Canada Goldenrods have mostly gone to seed. Note the long rays on the individual heads, giving the whole tuft of yellow a distinctive shaggy look. These plants were blooming in mid-October under a streetcar overpass in Beechview. Gray lists this as Solidago serotina var. gigantea.

From Gray’s Manual: S. serotina Ait. Stem stout, 0.6-2.5 m. high, smooth, often glaucous; leaves quite smooth both sides, lanceolate to oblanceolate, taper-pointed, very sharply serrate, except the narrowed base, rough-ciliate; the middle ones 7-16 cm. long, 1-3 cm. wide; the ample panicle pubescent; involucre 3.5-5 mm. long, its bracts linear, subherbaceous; rays 7-14, rather long. Thickets, in rich soil, N. B. to B. C., and southw. July-Sept.

Var. gigantea (Ait.) Gray. Leaves glabrous above, slightly pubescent beneath, especially on the nerves; involucre 3.2-4 mm. long. Low ground, e. Que. to Ill., and southw.

Also called Milfoil, “thousand-leaf,” from the finely divided leaves. A European import that has become a common wildflower all over the East. Still a popular garden flower; in recent years many colors have been bred, but the wild ones are almost always either white or pink. This plant, blooming in mid-October, grew by the side of a country road a little west of Houston, Pennsylvania.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

ACHILLEA [Vaill.] L. YARROW
Heads many-flowered, radiate; the rays few, fertile. Involucral bracts imbricated, with scarious margins. Receptacle chaffy, flattish. Achenes oblong, flattened, margined; pappus none. Perennial herbs, with small corymbose heads. (So named because its virtues are said to have been discovered by Achilles.)

A. millefolium L. (COMMON Y., MILFOIL.) Stem simple or sometimes forked above, 3-10 dm. high, arachnoid or nearly smooth; stem-leaves numerous (8-15), smooth or loosely pubescent; corymbs very compound, 6-20 cm. broad, flat-topped, the branches stiff; involucre 3-5 mm. long, its bracts all pale, or in exposed situations the uppermost becoming dark-margined; rays 5-10, white to crimson, short-oblong, 1.5-2.5 mm. long. Fields and river-banks, common. (Eurasia.)

These tall, sunny-yellow flowers often grow at the edge of the woods. They are also called “Yellow Ironweed”; although they are not closely related to the true ironweeds (Vernonia altissima and Vernonia noveboracensis, for example), the plants look very similar without the flowers, and the stems are similarly strong. The flowers are distinctive: the rays are presented in a slovenly sort of way, with some flowers never growing more than two of them. The flowers with more rays often look like a sloppy drawing of a daisy, with rays of different sizes and shapes arranged asymmetrically.  The disks are spiny-looking, with large florets arranged pincushion-fashion.

From Gray’s Manual:

ACTINOMERIS Nutt.
Heads many-flowered; rays neutral, few or none. Involucral bracts few, herbaceous, nearly equal, soon deflexed beneath the globular disk. Receptacle small, chaffy. Achenes flat, obovate, winged or wingless, at maturity spreading in all directions; pappus of 2-3 smooth persistent awns. Tall branching perennials, with serrate feather-veined leaves tapering to the base and mostly decurrent on the stem. Heads corymbed; flowers chiefly yellow. (Name from aktis, a ray, and meris, a part;  alluding to the irregularity of the rays.)

1. A. alternifolia (L.) DC. Stem somewhat hairy, usually winged above, 1-2 m. high; leaves alternate or the lower opposite, oblong or ovate-lanceolate, pointed at both ends; rays 2-8, irregular. (A. squarrosa Nutt.; Verbbesina alternifolia Britton.) Rich soil, N. J. to Ont., Ia., Kan., and southw. Aug.-Sept.