Flower:

Open flat clusters of 3 to 60 daisy-like flowers on 1-inch stalks at the top of the plant. The flowers are about ½ inch across with 10 to 20 white rays (petals) around a creamy white to pale yellow disk.

The floral bracts are narrow, light green at the base, darker green at the tip end, often with a prominent nerve. Where the flower stalk joins the stem is often a small leafy bract.

Leaves and stems:

Leaves can be smooth or rough textured, mostly toothless except for a few noticeable teeth towards the tip, mostly lance linear, the lower ones stalked and sometimes more lance oval, up to 7½ inches long, upper leaves progressively smaller, becoming stalkless, and scale-like in the flower clusters. Stems are erect and rigid, clustered from the underground root crown (caudex), mostly unbranched except in the flower cluster, sometimes smooth below but typically rough textured in the upper plant.

Notes:

Upland White Goldenrod, often called Upland White Aster (Oligoneuron album), prefers dry prairie soils but is also common in the rocky cracks of Lake Superior's north shore. While it can't be confused with any other Minnesota goldenrod, which are all yellow, it can be mistaken for a white aster species, and was long considered an aster (Aster ptarmicoides), but it is known to hybridize with other goldenrods, Riddell's Goldenrod (Solidago riddellii) in Minnesota, the hybrid (Solidago × bernardii) producing flowers with pale yellow rays.