This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s a stringy coastal wildflower of the yellow variety known as Slender Goldentop (Euthamia caroliniana).
Slender Goldentop is a perennial wildflower common throughout the maritime forests of Edisto Island. Its shaggy cone of wiry leaves on narrow stems reach the hip. Above the Fimbry and below the Switchgrass through the fringes of the marsh. An appearance not misplaced in the coarse and gnarled flora of the saline floodplain. There it grows quiet and hidden through the warmest parts of the year. Flowers emerge amidst autumn across the plateau of the plant. Small, unkempt, and golden in frothing plumes above the escarpments of the marsh. The plants are common inland as well but never so regular as they are here.
The plant is a reliable source of nectar but often over-shadowed by more productive late-season wildflowers. Many pollinators seek their meals at its neighbors but entertain on its spray of flowers when those others wither away. Slender Goldentop is close kin to Goldenrods, which from its appearance you would predict. Goldentops have a bushier, compacted growth-form than Goldenrods. A trait which makes them easy to pick apart despite the same deep-yellow flares of flowers flown by both.
