Plants 50-120 cm; caudices branching, woody. Stems 1, ascending-erect, softly short villous. Leaves: basal and proximal cauline winged-petiolate petioles (petioles ¹ / 2 + leaf length), blades broadly ovate (or subcordate) to elliptic, 50-100(-160) × 30-40 mm, margins shallowly serrate-crenate, apices acute to obtuse, soft short-villous; mid and distal cauline subpetiolate or sessile, blades ovate to elliptic, 20-40 × 5-15 mm, greatly reduced, becoming narrowly elliptic. Heads 50-100 , in paniculiform arrays, proximal branches obscurely to evidently recurved-secund. Peduncles slender. Involucres campanulate, 4-5 mm. Phyllaries in 3-4 series, broadly lanceolate, unequal, glabrate or sparsely short-strigose. Ray florets usually 7-12; laminae 3-6 × 1.5-2 mm. Disc florets usually 14-27; corolla tubes 4 mm, lobes 0.8-1 mm. Cypselae 1.5-2.5, sparsely strigose; pappi ± 3 mm (shorter than corollas). 2n = 18. Flowering May-Jun. Open woods, fields, dry bogs, roadsides of coastal plain; 10-70 m; N.C., S.C. Solidago verna is in the Center for Plant Conservation´s National Collection of Endangered Plants.