Plants 40-100 cm; caudices woody. Stems glabrous, viscid-resinous. Leaves: basal petiolate; blades tapering to petioles, linear to elliptic-oblanceolate, 100-150 (-220) (including petiole) × 5-10(-15) mm, margins serrate, apices acute to obtuse; the outer much smaller; mid and distal similar to basal, becoming sessile, mid 40-60 × 2-4 mm, distally reduced (in arrays) to linear bracts 10-35 × 1-2 mm, entire. Heads in paniculiform arrays, 15-30 cm, branches ascending, 2-10 cm, not secund in erect stems, secund in arching ones. Peduncles 2-6 mm, glabrous, sometimes resinous-glandular; bracteoles linear, 0-5. Involucres campanulate, 4.5-6 mm. Phyllaries (in 3-4 series) lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, strongly unequal, apices rounded, glabrous, somewhat resinous. Ray florets 3-6; laminae 3.5-5 × 1 mm. Disc florets mostly 8-10; corollas 4.5-5.5 mm, lobes 0.8-1.2 mm. Cypselae obconic, ca. 2.5 mm, shallowly ribbed, glabrous; pappi 4-5 mm. 2n = 18.

Flowering Aug-Sep. Stream banks; of conservation concern; 100 m; N.C.

Solidago plumosa is known only from a short stretch of the Falls Yadkin River, Stanley County. This species is similar to S. simplex var. racemosa and possibly conspecific with S. simplex. Insufficient material of this taxon has limited study. Known only from the type material since its description, it has been found recently, locally abundant along the Yadkin River at the type locality (A. Weakly, pers. comm.).