Southern goldenrod is a stout-stemmed, glabrous, fairly tall (to 5' or 6') perennial.  The alternate leaves are somewhat fleshy, pale green and entire-margined but sometimes scabrid on the margins, the lowest lanceolate-elliptic up to 8-9" long and with nearly sheathed bases, and the upper lance-linear and reduced often with a few axillary leaf clusters.  The inflorescence is a dense, oblong, many-headed panicle to 10" long.  The radiate flowers have ± cylindric to bell-shaped involucres with narrowly triangular phyllaries that are slightly imbricated, sharply acute and somewhat inrolled near the tips. There are as many as thirteen ray flowers with ligules to 1/8" long and twenty disk flowers.  Southern goldenrod is usually to be found on wet streambanks, springs and marshes to 7500' in coastal sage scrub, chaparral and yellow pine forest through-
out montane and cismontane Southern California, and blooms from July to October. These pictures were taken along Big Rock Creek on the north side of the San Gabriel Mts.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Solidago  2) confinis.
Pronunciation: sol-i-DAY-go kon-FINE-is.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.