Solidago bartramiana

Brenda's Goldenrod

Solidago bartramiana Fernald (1915) is the long ignored and misunderstood correct name for the species previously treated by the Astereae Lab as Solidago brendae Semple.  The type collection Fernald et al. 6303 (GH, MT, NY, PH) is from Grand Falls, Newfoundland and is a very small plant compared to nearly all other collections of the species. Beaudry (1970) published the combination S. canadensis var. bartramiana (Fern.) Beaudry. Fernald (1915) also treated some plants belonging in S. bartramiana as as S. lepida DC. var. elongata (Nutt.) Fern., which was a misapplication of the name S. elongata Nutt.  Solidago bartramiana for the most part is allopatric to S. canadensis and replaces S. canadensis in northern Ontario, Québec, and Newfoundland.  It is common in the Gaspé Peninsula and along the north shore of the St. Lawrence R., in northeastern Québec.  It occurs in scattered locations in Labrador, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Breton, and near the north shore of Nova Scotia in eastern Canada.  It is native near James Bay in Ontario and native or introduced in scattered locations in northern Ontario as far west as Red Lake.  Semple and Gilman (2015) reported the presence of of the species under the name S. brendae in northern Vermont. Solidago bartramiana can be similar in the eastern part of its range to S. fallax which has broader leaves.

The species was included in Semple and Cook (2006, Flora of North America) mistakenly as S. ×bartramiana and incorrectly thought to be a possible S. canadensis × ulignosa hybrid which was rejected recently (Semple 2023).  Semple (2020) discussed why the name S. brendae was taken up rather than the original form of the name S. brendiae.

Solidago bartramiana is known to sometimes hybridize with S. bicolor (Semple 2016) and S. sempervirens (Semple 2020).

Solidago bartramiana is diploid throughout its range; a cytogeography map for the species was published under the synonym S. brendae (Semple and Chmielewski 2022).