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.