The bright yellow blossoms of this native perennial are currently abundant along ditches and marshes on Ocracoke.  They are being blamed, fairly or not, for hazy heads and sniffling noses.

Bartender Ashleigh 'Beatle' Haddad was "all snotty when I woke up Monday morning.  I proceeded to sneeze constantly for a day or two," she said.  She noted that her symptoms are more pronounced late at night and early in the morning.

Biologists say goldenrod is unfairly blamed for reactions caused by the less vivid ragweed.

One of her three bosses, Frank Brown, at Natural Selections (aka the Hemp Shop) suggested something flowering was the cause of her undue misery. 

A golf cart ride with pal Ryan O'Neal clarified the culprit, but not the sinuses.  While cruising through the Oyster Creek subdivision, Ryan stopped the cart on one of the bridges, pointed out the clustering blooms, and said, "'That is what's making you sneeze,'" Beatle told Ocracoke Current.

She scratched her watery eyes and confessed to having learned something:  "I only knew goldenrod was a crayola color," said Beatle.