Plants 50-120 cm; caudices branching. Stems 1 usually, erect, round, proximally glabrous, strigose in arrays. Leaves: basal and proximal cauline tapering abruptly to winged, thin petioles, blades broadly ovate, 100-300 × 30-100 mm, margins sharply serrate, apices acute to acuminate, adaxial faces glabrous or slightly scabrous, or sometimes strigose or strigillose; mid to distal cauline sessile, lanceolate, 50-72 × 10-14 mm, reduced distally, becoming entire. Heads 25-250, secund, in open, leafy, paniculiform arrays with recurved branches (sometimes elongate), branches and peduncles hairy. Peduncles 1.5-3 mm, glabrous or moderately short hispido-strigose, bracteoles 1-5, lanceolate-oblong, often grading into phyllaries. Involucres 2.5-4.5(-5) mm. Phyllaries in 3-4 series, unequal; outer ovate, acute, inner linear-oblong, ciliate, obtuse. Ray florets 2-8; laminae 4-4.5 × 0.4-0.6 mm. Disc florets 8-20; corollas 3.5-4 mm, lobes 0.6-1.5 mm. Cypselae 1.5-2 mm, distinctly ridged, glabrous or strigose distally; pappi 3-3.5 mm. Solidago arguta is reputedly in Ohio but its presence there is unconfirmed. The species includes a number of regional and ecotypal races investigated by G. H. Morton (1973, 1975). A. Cronquist (1980) is followed here.
Stems 5-15 dm from a stout, branched caudex, glabrous except for the somewhat puberulent infl; lvs basally disposed, glabrous, or slightly scaberulous above, toothed to subentire, the larger ones 10-30 נ3-12 cm, the broadly elliptic or ovate blade rather abruptly contracted to the long petiole; infl paniculiform, with recurved-secund branches, sometimes elongate and narrow, more often broad and open, with long, divergent branches; invol 3-7 mm, its bracts acute or obtuse; rays 2-8; disk-fls 8-20; 2n=18, 36. Woods, forest-openings, and dry meadows; Me. to Fla., w. to Ky., Mo., and La. Three vars. in our range:
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
