Solidago flexicaulis.

The Native Plants forum is located right below the Native Plant Exchange under the alphabetical list of garden forums.

We have been through the missing Native Plants Forum previously.

On Houzz it is not present! See list of forums copied and pasted below from Houzz.

Moss, Ferns & Cryptogams

Name That Plant!

Name That Rose!

Native Plant Exchange

Nevada Gardening

I'm looking and thinking and this goldenrod to me seems to have the zig zag stems of S. flexicaulis, but the leaves seem too narrow for flexicaulis and are more a match for S. caesia. Perhaps I jumped the gun too quickly and nobody questioned, but I'm resubmitting this for more opinions.

These plants are not S. flexicaulis, which has much wider cauline leaves. Since we don't have much to determine scale, I'm not sure about S. caesia. It looks, though, like some of the leaves are too wide for that species (larger leaves to 3 cm (just over 1 inch) wide). Consider Solidago ouachitensis, and see if that fits.

Thanks jekeesl, I’ll check. And thanks for revisiting, Jay. I was fairly certain that it wasn’t S. flexicaulis because the leaves were inconsistent, but as I noted originally, I didn’t have easy access to that plant. Since no one chimed in I thought the most productive path would be to provide better pics. I was sure that the leaf formation at the base of the plant would make identification easier, but I guess that’s not uncommon for Solidago. I’ve never seen only one of anything on my property so I assumed there were more and started looking. Got distracted by the need to clear massive amounts of Japanese stilt weed, seasonal lawn care, etc. and completely forgot about it until the other day when a goldenrod from my Mom’s garden was ID’d as S. flexicaulis (I’d insert the post, but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet - the heading is Zone 6b Perennial) which I haven’t confirmed yet. Here’s a pic.

.

I never realized that there’s such a vast variety of goldenrod. I think it’s a lovely plant in all the forms I’ve encountered.

Sandy, sorry about the wrong ID, and for not paying more attention to what you were saying. There are 66 or something species of goldenrods and they all have mostly yellow flowers and similar green leaves. I thought I had ID'd some flexicaulis in the wild, and I went to collect seeds and realized they weren't flexicaulis after all, because the leaves were too narrow. I accidentally stumbled on this last night, and you were doing a pretty good job trying to ID it yourself, better than me lol.

No problem! I read that there are 100-120 species of goldenrod in NA. The things that struck me about the one I found were that it seemed quite happy in the shade and its stems weren’t upright (though that could be attributable to reaching for light).

I don’t think it’s S. ouachitensis which is apparently has a very narrow geographic range — it’s native to the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Also the leaves and flower placement of S. ouachitensis are a bit different from my goldenrod. I guess it could have somehow made its way to upstate NY but, for now, I’m going with S. caesia - unless someone comes up with a better fit. If it comes back next year I’ll retrieve it for a closer look and to put it into my shade garden. Thanks!

In case anyone was wondering, the second plant I mentioned in my initial post turned out not to be a goldenrod.

Sandy, What was the second plant you mentioned that likes poor drainage?

Sorry I don’t know what it was. It just seemed too weedy and potentially prolific without much charm, at least not to me, so I pulled it up.