Even though golden rods were wrongly considered to be the causes of hay fever, they are still considered to be signs of good luck. Golden rods are primarily used for decoration or for making tea, even though they are really weeds, and not flowers per se.

There are, in fact, many species of golden rod but they are difficult for a lay person to distinguish because all of them have pretty golden flowers, with thousands of smallish capitula, some of which are spike shaped. These appear on slim stems, which are usually hairless, growing between 60 and 1.5m in height. There are some 80 species of this perennial plant which belongs to the genus Solidago, and they are found to easily grow in the wild, alongside ditches, roads, open pastures and meadows in North America as well as in Europe.

Almost all species of goldenrods normally blossom late in summertime and in the early parts of the autumn and some goldenrod species also produce spicy flavoured nectar. Other species of golden rod like the hybrid x Solidaster are used in dried flower arrangement.