White Haired Goldenrod (Solidago albopilosa): Threatened Red River Gorge Wildflower in Kentucky

Generations upon generations of local residents appreciate Kentucky’s beautifully tenacious white-haired goldenrods. But the plucky perennial’s formal, official recognition only dates back to 1942. The prevailing binomial, Greek/Latin, scientific, taxonomic identification indeed draws upon the extensive experience and expertise of Emma Lucy Braun (April 19, 1889 – March 5, 1971), as:

• Cincinnati-born Ohio expert on botany, ecology, geology of the eastern United States of America’s forests;
• Co-operator of experimental gardens with her sister, entomologist and first female University of Cincinnati Ph.D. recipient;
• Co-researcher with Annette of Appalachian Mountain flora and East Coast environments;
• Mentor of thirteen M.A. students and one Ph.D. student;
• University of Cincinnati teacher of biology, ecology, geology;
• Writer of four books and 180 journal articles.

Gaining the attention of such an eminent academic acknowledges:

• Dr. Braun’s results-oriented perspicacity;
• White-haired goldenrod’s attention-getting uniqueness.

Today’s environmental scientists indeed benefit from such fact- and specimen-gathering as that realized from 1930 onward by the Braun sisters. The National Museum in Washington, D.C., in fact claims the herbarium of eastern North American flowers preserved and pressed by Professor Braun from high school onward. Countless naturalists likewise esteem Professor Braun’s:

• Advocating nature conservation and reserves;
• Founding the Wildflower Preservation Society of North America;
• Pioneering female professionalism with Ecological Society of America and Ohio Academy of Science presidencies and Ohio Conservation Hall of Fame inductions;
• Releasing The Woody Plants of Ohio: Cat-tails to Orchids;
• Respecting Appalachian culture and wildlife.

Cultural anthropologists and geographers acknowledge Kentucky’s inclusion within the eastern United States of America’s Appalachian region. Appalachia’s mountains traditionally act as protectors to:

• Diverse wildlife;
• Unique culture.

Environmental awareness, scientific breakthroughs, and technological advances nevertheless become ironically double-edged swords in regard to Appalachian mountain fauna and flora. Ecological threats indeed cannot be considered the monopoly of such resource-seekers as logging and mining companies. They also come from wildlife-loving campers, climbers, and hikers who unknowingly contribute to:

• Environmental contamination through fire-building and littering;
• Habitat reconfiguration through altered lighting levels and stressed water bodies and wildlife populations;
• Soil compaction through ground-trampling and trail-blazing.

They contribute to the precariousness of white-haired solidago’s existence in just three of Kentucky’s Appalachian counties.

Menifee, Powell, and Wolfe are the central-eastern Kentucky counties of white-haired goldenrod’s distributional range. The counties embrace two beloved, world-famous natural landmarks:

• Daniel Boone National Forest;
• Red River Gorge.

The forest honors Pennsylvania Colony-born explorer, folk hero, frontiersman, naturalist, and pioneer Daniel Boone (November 2, 1734 – September 26, 1820). It hosts:

• Bear, cougar, red wolf introductions;
• Buckhorn, Cave Run, Laurel River Lake reservoirs;
• Clifty, Creek Wilderness areas;
• Endangered gray, Indiana, Virginia big-eared bats and red-cockaded woodpeckers;
• Great Falls;
• Herb-gathering woodlots;
• Natural Bridge State Resort Park;
• Pioneer Weapons areas for crossbow, flintlock-/percussion-loading firearm, longbow deer-hunting;
• Rock Creek Research Natural Area national landmark;
• Sheltowee Trace Trail;
• Yahoo Arch, Falls.

Red River Gorge Geological Area is the white-haired goldenrod’s homeland.

Rock-house, white-haired goldenrods accept altitudes of 800 – 1,300 feet (243.84 – 396.24 meters) above sea level. They associate biologically and geologically with:

• Bees and syrphid flies (because of super-viable pollen);
• Cliffs with dry, part-shaded rock-house and Pottsville sandstone overhangs;
• Mixed mesophytic (fibrous-rooted, flat-leaved, rhizomatous) vegetative companions of maples, mountain-laurels, oaks;
• Sands with acidic soil pH ranges of 4.5 – 5.0.

They also can be linked with the healthy sustainability of:

• Bristle fern;
• Christmas fern, clearweed;
• Flowering dogwood, four-leaf yam;  
• Great laurel;
• Indian cucumber-root;
• Intermediate wood, maidenhair ferns;
• Jack-in-the-pulpit;
• Little-flower alumroot;
• Little-mountain, mountain meadow-rues;
• Maple-leaf arrow-wood;
• Partridgeberry, poison ivy;
• Round-leaf catchfly;
• White baneberry, wild hydrangea;
• Yellow fairy-bells.

They do not overlap with invasions by:

• Garlic mustard;
• Japanese stiltgrass;
• Maiden grass.

Within their craggy, sandy habits, rock-house white-haired goldenrods are recognizable by:

• Flowers;
• Foliage;
• Form.

Thirty or more bright, fragrant, tiny flowers cluster in golden pettiness along plant tops. They complement the likewise spectacular beauty of:

• Conspicuous bloom, September - November;
• Copious brown, dry, oblong, single-seed achenes, October - December;
• Elliptical, toothed, veined leaves dark above, pale below, 2.36 – 3.94 inches (6 – 10 centimeters) long;
• 1 – 3+ arching stems 1 – 3+ feet (0.31 – 0.92 meters) each;
• Plenteous hairs whitening above-ground shoots;
• Reclusive location behind drip-lines, leaf-litter in sandy cave and cliff bases, ledges, recesses, walls;
• Smart propagation by pollen, rhizomes 0.39 – 0.79 inches (1 – 2 centimeters) underground, seeds water- and wind-dispersed;
• Tenacious elusiveness from full light, full shade.

The name white-haired (albopilosa) goldenrod calls up images of plants with:

• Healing properties in traditional medicine;
• Strengthening (Solidago) consequences for habitats.

Environmentalists indeed deem white-haired goldenrods keystone obligates. White-haired goldenrod decline or disappearance therefore derives from the uncontrolled environmental stress of:

• Air, land, water pollution;
• Global-warmed climate change;
• Human, vehicular traffic;
• Soil compaction.

Their sustainability fortunately finds substantial inputs from:

• Area, commonwealth, federal recovery programs;
• Environmental sciences and studies in curricula;
• Scientific research.

But educational and legal measures must be bolstered by the environmental prioritizations of wildlife-loving activism. Committing to litter- and trample-free behaviors throughout urban – wildland interfaces represents the critical first steps whose steady serialization culminates in 1,000-mile (1,609.34-meter) journeys of sustainability for nature and people.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Solidago albopilosa received its official description in 1942 from pioneer plant ecologist E. (Emma) Lucy Braun, who first discovered the species in Kentucky's Menifee County in 1940.
ca. 1950 photograph of Emma Lucy Braun by Mary Hufford (born February 3, 1952)
Library of Congress American Folklife Center, Coal River Folklife Collection: No known copyright protection, via Library of Congress @ https://www.loc.gov/item/cmns000316

Emma Lucy Braun collaborated in research with her sister, Annette Frances Braun (August 28, 1884 - November 27, 1978), entomologist and first female University of Cincinnati Ph.D. recipient.
"Color Patterns in Lithocolletis"; illustration by AFB (Annette Frances Braun; August 24, 1884-November 27, 1978)
Annette F. Braun, Evolution of the Color Pattern in the Microlepidopterous Genus Lithocolletis (1914), Plate III: Not in copyright, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/38577551

thirteen Appalachian states
Appalachian Regional Commission, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Appalachian_region_of_United_States.gif

Daniel Boone National Forest, which includes Red River Gorge, homeland of Solidago albopilosa, honors frontiersman extraordinaire, Daniel Boone.
portrait of Daniel Boone, 84 years old: June 1820 oil sketch by Chester Harding (September 1, 1792 - April 1, 1866)
Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Unfinished_portrait_of_Daniel_Boone_by_Chester_Harding_1820.jpg; via Massachusetts Historical Society Collections Online @ https://www.masshist.org/database/3280

Solidago albopilosa's endemic habitat requirements necessitate open caves with overhanging rock formations and rock shelters in Red River Gorge.
Red River Gorge's "caves with color"; Sunday, November 2, 2008, at 11:54:15: CHeitz, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/coreyheitzmd/2997136827/

Solidago albopilosa synecology: Little-flower alumroot (Heuchera parviflora) is a frequent associate of White-haired Goldenrod.
little-flower alumroot, also known as cave alumroot; "plants in typical rocky habitat": Dave Powell, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0, via InsectImages @ https://www.insectimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1209046

Yellow, fragrant flowers of White-haired Goldenrod (Solidago albopilosa) bloom autumnally September through November.
Red River Gorge Geological Area, Daniel Boone National Forest, east central Kentucky: Dr. Thomas Barnes/University of Kentucky, Public Domain, via USFWS (US Fish and Wildlife Service) National Digital Library @ https://digitalmedia.fws.gov/digital/collection/natdiglib/id/8164

White-haired Goldenrod (Solidago albopilosa) is endemic to the Red River Gorge Geological Area, which is located on the Cumberland Plateau, in Menifee, Powell and Wolfe counties.
Red River Gorge Geological Area, Daniel Boone National Forest, east central Kentucky: Dr. Thomas Barnes/University of Kentucky, Public Domain, via USFWS (US Fish and Wildlife Service) National Digital Library @ https://digitalmedia.fws.gov/digital/collection/natdiglib/id/8163

Zigzag goldenrod (Solidago flexicaulis) is considered as a close relative of Solidago albopilosa.
White-haired goldenrod reportedly hybridizes with zigzag goldenrod.
USDA Soil Conservation Service, "Zigzag Goldenrod Solidago flexicaulis L," Midwest Wetland Flora (1989): Robert H. Mohlenbrock @ USDA-National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solidago_flexicaulis01.jpg

Solidago albopilosa is endemic to Red River Gorge, one of the most visited areas in Kentucky's Daniel Boone National Forest.
view of Red River Gorge from sandstone Natural Bridge: Aaron Vowels, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:View_from_Natural_Bridge.jpg; Aaron Vowels (ConspiracyofHappiness), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/97964364@N00/6033458532/

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• Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library at: http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/38577585

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• Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library at: http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/608543

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