RAGWEED Ambrosia - The Allergy Culprit

by Carol Senske

Title

RAGWEED Ambrosia - The Allergy Culprit

Artist

Carol Senske

Medium

Photograph - Photograph

Description

I've been "ragging" (no pun intended) on you to stop blaming Goldenrod for your hayfever! The evil doer is Ragweed. There are about 17 species of Ragweed in North America and just about everyone will be near some kind or other when they bloom in the late Summer and early Autumn. These are members of the aster family in the genus Ambrosia - seems an odd name for such a bothersome plant. Nevertheless, we have ragweed growing in our yard and it has a place as a native plant.

If you look to the upper right you will see the lower leaves which are cut-shapped. The confusion between Ragweed and Goldenrod may be partly due to the resemblance of the upper leaves on the Ragweed stem which do look kind of like Goldenrod. The flowers, too are different but to civilians like me they can look sort of like Goldenrod (but not really).

So I say to you - Love the Goldenrod! Embrace it as a beautiful Autumn wildflower and you can stop avoiding it. Love the Ragweed for what it is, a native wildflower, but do avoid it during pollen season if you have allergies.

Goldenrod is pollinated by insects and does not release it's pollen into the wind. Ragweed is wind pollinated and carries the pollen right into your face!

This picture was taken in our yard in Green Lane, Pennsylvania, USA, on October 4, 2015, with a Canon T4i and a Tamron 18-270 lens.

More info here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragweed

Information on Ragweed allergies:

https://www.aafa.org/display.cfm?id=9&sub=19&cont=267

http://www.webmd.com/allergies/features/ragweed-pollen

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October 5th, 2015

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