Stout Goldenrod

Plants 30–150 cm; caudices branching. Stems 1–5+, erect, glabrous proximal to arrays. Leaves: basal and proximal cauline tapering quickly to long, winged ciliate-margined petioles, blades ovate, 50–200 × 20–100 mm, margins serrate; mid to distal cauline sessile, blades oblanceolate, 30–100 × 8–35 mm, reduced distally and becoming lanceolate-ovate, margins entire, abaxially sparsely strigose along nerves. Heads 20–200, not secund, in narrow, elongate arrays of axillary and terminal racemiform clusters, branches and peduncles hairy, leafy-bracteate proximally. Peduncles 8–10 mm. Involucres 5–9 mm. Phyllaries (20–26) in 4–6 series, recurved, unequal, conspicuously spreading, lanceolate, margins ciliate, apices acute to obtuse, finely strigose. Ray florets 10–16; laminae 4–6.5 × 0.4–0.6 mm. Disc florets 15–30; corollas 5–5.6 mm, lobes 0.5–1.2 mm. Cypselae (obconic) 1.5–2 mm, glabrous; pappi 3–4.3 mm. 2n = 18.

Aster muehlenbergianus Kuntze; Solidago squamosa Nuttall ex Hooker; S. squarrosa var. ramosa Peck

Solidago squarrosa, commonly known as stout goldenrod, is a North American species of goldenrod in the family Asteraceae. It is native to Canada (Ontario, Québec, and New Brunswick) and the eastern United States (from Maine west to Indiana and south as far as Tennessee and the Carolinas).

Solidago squarrosa is a perennial herb up to 150 cm (5 feet) tall, with a branching underground caudex. Leaves are egg-shaped, up to 20 cm (8 inches) long near the base of the plant, shorter farther up the stem. One plant can produce as many as 200 small yellow flower heads in a narrow, elongate array at the top of the plant.

Magnification of pseudanthium, showing characteristic bent-back phyllaries