Solidago chilensis

Solidago chilensis Meyen (including S. linearifolia, S. patagonica) is native to South America from Bolivia south to much of Argentina.  The stems vary from having the short (0.1-0.3 mm long) dense hairs typical of most of the Tortifolia Group to being glabrous.  The inflorescence is elongated and secund pyramidal like that of S. juliae, S. tortifolia, and S. leavenworthii, its likely closest relatives in North America.  Lopez Laphitz & Semple (2015) presented a multivariate morphometric analysis of S. chilensis and S. microglossa and included range maps and a key to goldenrods in South America.

The species has been introduced into Brazil, the West Indies, and Madeira Is. off the coast of Africa (Conçalves Silva et al. 2009).  The species was recently reported to be naturalized in the Azores (Semple, Lopez Laphitz & Schaefer 2017) and in states of Western Australia, South Australia, and Victoria in Australia (Semple et al. 2017).  These plants are  the glabrous-stem morph.

Solidago chilensis range draft JCS

Conçalves Silva, J.J., J.C. Semple, R. Lopez Laphitz and M. Menezes de Sequeira. 2009. First record of La Plata River Goldenrod Solidago chilensis Meyen (Asteraceae), in the Island of Madeira (Portugal). Bol. Mus. Mun. Funchal 58: 32-36.

Rita Lopez Laphitz. 2009. The genus Solidago L. (Astereae, Asteraceae) in South America and related taxa in North America. M.Sc. Dissertation. University of Waterloo. Waterloo, Ontario.

Lopez Laphitz, R. and J.C. Semple. 2015. A multivariate morphometric analysis of the Solidago chilensis complex in South America and related taxa in North America (Asteraceae: Astereae).  Ann. Mo. Bot. Garden 100(4): 423-441.

Semple, J.C., R.M. Lopez Laphitz and H. Schaefer.  2017.  Multivariate morphometric confirmation of Solidago chilensis (Asteraceae: Astereae) in the Azores.  Phytoneuron 2017-41: 1–7. 

Semple, J.C., R. Lopez Laphitz, A. Uesugi, S.C. Coffey, and N.G. Walsh.  2017 submitted.  Multivariate morphometric confirmation of Solidago chilensis (Asteraceae: Astereae) in  Australia.  Phytoneuron 2017-42: 1–10.

Last update 1 June 2017 by J.C. Semple     

© 2017 J.C. Semple, including all photographs unless otherwise indicated.