Chrysoma

Chrysoma Nutt. includes a single species C. pauciflosculosa (Michx.) Greene.  Plants are small evergreen woody shrubs to 1 meter tall native to sand hills etc. on the coastal plain from North Carolina (inner coastal plain) to Mississippi (near the coast).  The genus has been included in Solidago by some authors as Solidago pauciflosculosa Michx. The species is diploid (2n=18).

In their DNA sequence study, Schilling et al. (2008) found Chrysoma to be in a clade with Brintonia that was sister clade to the genus Solidago. Semple et al. (2023) in a polygenomic study determined that C. pauciflosculosa was sister to all of Solidago and warranted genus level status due to a combination of traits including being a woody shrub, having persistent leave bases on older stems, and by having sunken leaf veins. Brintonia was placed well within Solidago subg. Solidago and is treated here as Solidago discoidea.

Schilling, E.E., J.B. Beck, P.J. Calie, and R.L. Small. 2008. Molecular analysis of Solidaster cv. Lemore, a hybrid goldenrod (Asteraceae). J. Bot. Research Institute of Texas 2: 7-18.

Semple, J.C., McMinn-Sauder, H., Stover, M., Lemmon, A., Lemmon E., and J. B. Beck. 2023. Goldenrod herbariomics: Hybrid-sequence capture reveals the phylogeny of diploid Solidago. Amer. J. Bot. 110(7): e16164.https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.16164

Last revised 26 May 2025 by J.C. Semple

© 2025 J.C. Semple, including all photographs unless otherwise indicated