Western Rough Goldenrod

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.

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.

Aster decemflora Kuntze; Solidago decemflora A. Gray; S. laeta Greene; S. pendula Small; S. radula var. laeta (Greene) Fernald; S. radula var. rotundifolia (de Candolle) A. Gray; S. radula var. stenolepis Fernald; S. rotundifolia de Candolle; S. scaberrima Torrey & A. Gray

Solidago radula, the western rough goldenrod, is a North American plant species in the family Asteraceae. It is found primarily in the southern Great Plains and the Mississippi Valley of the United States (from Texas to Illinois), with isolated populations farther east in Kentucky, Georgia, and the Carolinas.

Solidago radula is a perennial herb up to 90 cm (3 feet) tall, with a caudex and rhizomes. Lower leaves can be up to 10 cm (4 inches) long, leaves higher on the stem much smaller. One plant can produce as many as 260 small yellow flower heads in a branching array. The species grows in open rocky places and in dry woodlands.