prairie flat-top goldenrod

Oligoneuron album (prairie flat-top goldenrod) is a herbaceous perennial that typically grows to 12-24” tall. It is native to dry, sandy, usually calcareous soils, cracks in rocks, limestone pavements, rocky outcrops, grassy slopes and prairies from Quebec to Saskatchewan south to Georgia, Arkansas, and Colorado.

This plant was originally classified as Aster ptarmicoides, but was subsequently reclassified as Solidago ptarmicoides. Not with standing its aster-like white ray petals (most goldenrods have yellow ray petals), this plant has goldenrod-like foliage and is known to hybridize in the wild with other goldenrods but not with other asters.

After flowering, seed heads containing small clusters of seed with white fluff form (goldfinches love to eat the seed). Harvest promptly if seed is to be saved.

Narrow pointed green leaves have smooth or rough textures. Lower leaves (to 7” long) are lanceolate-oval and stalked. Upper leaves are smaller, narrower, and widely spaced, eventually becoming stalkless near the top. Daisy-like flowers in open, flat-topped, corymbiform clusters (each cluster typically having 3 to 25 but sometimes as many as 50 flowers) bloom late summer to fall. Each flower has between 10-20 white rays and creamy white to pale yellow center disks. This is a low mounded plant with narrow, 6-8” long, pointed, lanceolate leaves, and flat clusters of 1/2” daisy-like flowers having white rays and white to pale yellow center disks. Flowers bloom August – October.