Plants 30-90 cm; caudices, sometimes also creeping rhizomes as well. Stems usually 1-3, ascending to erect, scabrous to loosely puberulent. Leaves: basal and proximal usually withering by flowering, tapering to long-winged petioles, blades oblanceolate, 30-100 × 7-20(-30) mm, margins serrate or crenate, mid usually largest, apices acute to obtuse, acuminate, faces scabrous; mid and distal cauline subsessile (1 mm) or sessile, blades (sometimes ± shiny) elliptic to oblanceolate, 10-50 × 5-15(-25) mm, greatly reduced distally, grading into bracts, firm, bases convex-cuneate to rounded, margins finely serrate , often 3-nerved, nerves usually distinct abaxially, faces distinctly scabrous. Heads 20-260, in paniculiform arrays, narrowly to broadly secund, pyramidal, branches recurved, secund. Peduncles 0.5-2 mm; bracteoles 1-5, linear-lanceolate to ovate, minute, grading into phyllaries distally. Involucres narrowly campanulate, 3-5 mm. Phyllaries in 3-4 series, unequal, oblong, midnerves swollen distally, obtuse or acute to slightly acuminate. Ray florets 4-7; laminae 2-3.5 × 0.2-0.7 mm. Disc florets 4-6; corollas 3 mm, lobes 1 mm. Cypselae 1.5-2.5 mm, sparsely to moderately short-strigose; pappi 3 mm. 2n = 18, 36. Flowering Aug-Oct. Open rocky places, dry woods, especially calcareous soils; 0-600 m; Ark., Ga., Ill., Kans., Ky., La., Mo., N.C., Okla., S.C., Tex. Solidago radula is disjunct in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. J. R. Beaudry (1969) reported a diploid from Smithville, Dekalb County, Tennessee; that has not been confirmed.