''Solidago ptarmicoides'', the prairie goldenrod, white flat-top goldenrod or upland white aster, is a North American perennial flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is native to the central and eastern Canada (from New Brunswick to Manitoba) and parts of the United States (mostly Great Lakes region, the

Northeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

, the Ozarks, and the northern

Great Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...

, with isolated populations in Wyoming, Colorado,

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...

, and scattered locations in the Southeast. It has also been called upland white solidago, upland white goldenrod, and sneezewort goldenrod

Description

''Solidago ptarmicoides'' is distinctive within the genus in having white to cream-colored flowers, in heads arranged in a flat-topped corymb rather than in an elongated

raceme A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are produced as the s ...

. One plant can sometimes produce as many as 50 small heads. Leaves are narrow and linear, often rather stiff. The species prefers dry, sandy soils and grassy meadows.

Conservation status in the United States

The plant is listed as endangered in Connecticut,"Connecticut's Endangered, Threatened and Special Concern Species 2015"
State of Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Bureau of Natural Resources. Retrieved 1 February 2018. (Note: This list is newer than the one used by plants.usda.gov and is more up-to-date.) Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Tennessee, as rare in Indiana, and as presumed extirpated in Ohio.

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q15567718, from2=Q38780016, from3=Q50860269 ptarmicoides Flora of Canada Flora of the United States Plants described in 1841