Feel free to bring flowering stems of goldenrod inside your house – its heavy pollen is moved by insects and not wind. It’s ragweed that makes copious amounts of nose-irritating pollen so light weight that breezes blow it far and wide. Our most common ragweed is Ambrosia artesimifolia (I can’t find any reason it’s called ambrosia --the food of the gods ) and it grows about three feet high. But in the upstate where soils are heavier, giant rag weed thrives as a major pest. It gets over ten feet tall and makes far more pollen and seeds than its shorter relative. Rag weed seeds are tiny, with a beak that helps them stick to other surfaces, and now this native is a noxious weed worldwide as those seeds been uninvited hitch hikers in grain shipments to other countries.
Ragweed Gives Goldenrod a Bad Name
