A nonprofit publication of the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism

Old Time Kentucky: Despite its poor reputation, goldenrod can’t be blamed for your hay fever


By Berry Craig
NKyTribune columnist

The goldenrod is our state flower–some say state weed. Either way, it’s nothing to sneeze at.

“Goldenrod is not an allergenic plant,” said Dr. Beth A. Miller, Allergy and Immunology chief and Asthma, Allergy and Sinus Clinics director at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

Nonetheless, hay fever sufferers scorn the bright yellow, late summer-early fall bloomer as a close encounter of the worst kind. It’s a bum rap, according to Miller.

“Ragweed is the culprit of fall pollen allergies,” she explained.

Some would call the goldenrod the state weed, not the state flower (Photo Provided)

Some would call the goldenrod the state weed, not the state flower (Photo Provided)

Miller added, “One of the criteria for making a good pollen allergen are those that are wind pollinated; insect pollinated plants do not. Goldenrod is insect pollinated. Ragweed is wind pollinated.”

The General Assembly duly dubbed the goldenrod Kentucky’s official flower in 1926. But the plant was controversial.

Cincinnati botanist John Uri Lloyd disparaged the goldenrod as “a dangerous, noxious ‘weed,’ and should be exterminated,” according to the Sept. 8, 1909, Louisville Courier-Journal.

He conceded that “not a few fancy it” because the goldenrod looks like a flower. No matter, Lloyd argued, “it is a noxious weed and ought to be destroyed.”

Evidently most Kentuckians favored the goldenrod as state flower. It “was the predominant choice in a popular vote conducted by a woman’s organization to determine which flower best represented Kentucky,” according a 1930 issue of the C-J.

Nonetheless, the U.S. War Department objected.

“According to the United States Army regulations, the militia of each State is assigned a floral insignia, and in line with that practice, California was given the goldenrod,” the paper reported on Aug. 10, 1930.

Uncle Sam had assigned Kentucky the trumpet flower. State lawmakers endorsed the goldenrod anyway.

The C-J said in 1930 some Kentuckians still wanted to uproot the goldenrod in favor of another plant. Goldenrod fans rallied to the state flower.

“What is more, the goldenrod is in the commanding position of already having been officially designated by an act of the Kentucky Legislature, and that body hardly would seriously entertain any proposal to make a change to meet captious objections,” the paper maintained.

But the C-J hedged. “Should the question ever be re-opened, however, it must be admitted that Kentucky has an abundance of flowers to choose from.”

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Berry Craig of Mayfield is a professor emeritus of history from West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah and the author of five books on Kentucky history, including True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics: Bombast, Bourbon and Burgoo and Kentucky Confederates: Secession, Civil War, and the Jackson Purchase. Reach him at bcraig8960@gmail.com


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