Solidago altissima var. altissima is naturalized in China (Chen and Semple 2011). I have seen herbarium specimens from Taiwan (Peng and Hsu 1978) and photographs of plants from several locations in Zhejiang Province. All the photographs included here were taken by Lan Tong in the Hangzhou area in January 2014.
Stems can be up to 2 m tall and have thick bases that have lost the hairs originally present due to stem diameter increase and weathering. The same thing can happen on very large North American plants. Mid and upper stems are densely short hairy.
Chen, Yilin and John C. Semple. 2011. Solidago Linnaeus. pp. 632-634. In Wu, Z. Y., Raven, P. H. & Hong, D. Y., eds., Flora of China Volume 20–21 (Asteraceae). Science Press (Beijing) & Missouri Botanical Garden Press (St. Louis). Published online on 25 October 2011. Printed version December 2011.
Peng, C.-I & C. C. Hsu. 1978. Chromosome numbers in Taiwan Compositae. Bot. Bull. Acad. Sin. 19: 53-66.
Last updated 20 January 2014 by J.C. Semple
© 2014 J.C. Semple, including all photographs unless otherwise indicated