Missouriensis: Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora and Flora of Alberta leading to this species.   plants generally taller than 0.5-2.0 (3.0) dm tall plants mostly 2-4 dm tall; NOT 5-15 dm tall stems mostly glabrous below the inflorescence; NOT [mostly pubescent or puberulent] leaves glabrous; NOT [gray pubescent or puberulent] a basal rosette often present; NOT [absent, or reduced and soon withered] basal leaves much longer than stem leaves lower stem leaves well developed; NOT [absent, or reduced and soon withered] stem leaves reduced upwards; NOT [stem leafiest from about the middle, and only gradually or scarcely reduced upward] petiole of the basal leaves NOT conspicuously ciliate lower and middle stem leaves to 10 cm long; NOT [usually 20 cm or more long] lower and middle stem leaves 15 mm wide; NOT 20-75 mm wide lower stem leaves narrowly oblanceolate; NOT [leaves lanceolate] lower and middle stem leaves entire or obscurely dentate; NOT clearly serrate lower and middle stem leaves distinctly 3-nerved inflorescence a panicle with more or less spreading or arching branches; inflorescence NOT [racemose, with branches ascending along the stem]; inflorescence NOT [corymbose, with the branches slanting upward, forming a rounded or flat-topped inflorescence] heads often secund on the branches heads NOT glutinous

 

Solidago: Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora and Flora of Alberta leading to this genus. plants with fibrous roots; NOT with a taproot juice watery; NOT milky leaves alternate or basal; NOT opposite leaves simple; NOT pinnatifid, NOT divided leaves never spinescent heads small and numerous, in terminal or axillary clusters; NOT [usually solitary at ends of branches] involucral bracts in 2 or more series; NOT [in one series, sometimes with a few much shorter outer ones at the base] involucral bracts well imbricated; NOT scarcely imbricated receptacle naked flower heads with both tubular and ray florets ligulate flowers pistillate or neuter; NOT perfect ray florets yellow; NOT [pink, blue, purple, or white] stamens united to form a tube around the pistil pappus composed of hairs; NOT scales, NOT bristles, NOT firm awns, NOT a crown, NOT absent, pappus NOT chaffy pappus single, hairs sometimes unequal but not distinctly divided into an inner and outer series of two lengths; NOT [pappus double, hairs of the outer series inconspicuous, distinctly shorter than the inner]