Voss' goldenrod, Solidago vossii

Yesterday was a pilgrimage to Voss' goldenrod. Back in the early 1970s, I stopped in the Herbarium at the University of Michigan with a plant sprig I couldn't figure out. The first person I encountered was Dr. Edward Voss (1929-2012). That began a long association. I have many letters from Ed, correcting and commenting on the collections I've sent to the Herbarium. His efforts to mentor my amateur efforts were incredibly generous. There are very many of us that learned from Ed. I'm sure it was with these same sentiments that Pringle and Laureto named this discovery to commemorate Ed in 2010. It is a newly recognized species, the only goldenrod with eight sets of chromosomes in each cell. It only occurs in sandy pine barrens in two counties in Michigan's north central Lower Peninsula. Crawford Co MI, 8/13/21. Aster family, Asteraceae.