Solidago

Perennial herbs, often rhizomatous. Leaves basal and cauline, alternate, petiolate or sessile, ovate to oblanceolate, margins often serrate. Capitula radiate, sometimes discoid, capanulate to cylindric, in axillary clusters or terminal inflorescences; inflorescences more or less cylindrical thryses, paniculate with lower branches drooping and second, or corymbose; involucral bracts in 3–5 rows, herbaceous; receptacle flat, without scales or occasionally with a few chaffy scales near margin. Ray florets 1-seriate, female, yellow, rarely white; disc florets bisexual, corolla 5-lobed, yellow; anthers obtuse at base, with ovate-lanceolate apical appendages; style branches with lanceolate pubescent appendages. Cypselas sometimes somewhat compressed, glabrous or moderately strigillose, with 8–10 ribs; pappus of 1–2 series of barbellate bristles and rarely also with an outer series of setose scales.