Late goldenrod.....

Perennial.  Typical plant height is from 3 to 5 feet.  Colony-forming from creeping rhizomes.  Stems are glabrous and glaucous below the inflorescence, but pubescent within the inflorescence.

The inflorescence is confined to the summit of the stem, somewhat open, often "pyramidal" in shape.  Branches are ascending and recurved, pubescent.

Flower heads are radiate, arranged one-sided on branches.  Ray and disc floret corollas are bright yellow.

Basal and lowermost stem leaves are deciduous by flowering.  Stem leaves are lanceolate/oblanceolate, with three long, main veins that run approximately parallel to each other.  Leaf edges are often toothed.

Plants of mesic to wet meadows, roadside ditches, thickets, swamps; flowering late July to early September.  Native.

Similar species:  Solidago canadensis, Solidago altissima.

Solidago gigantea is one of only two Solidago species in our area with glaucous stems.  The other is Solidago caesia.

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Images & text copyright Arieh Tal, 1990 to 2023.  All rights reserved.