Subshrubs or perennial herbs, 7-50 cm tall. Rootstock ca. 9 mm in diam. Caudex unbranched or more rarely branched, with somewhat fibrous and lacerate leaf sheath residues. Stems some to many, grayish green, rigid, herbaceous, sparsely to moderately divaricately branched in apical half, puberulent, glabrescent, or glabrous, leafy; branches virgate, slender, spreading-erect. Basal leaves crowded, linear, early deciduous. Stem leaves linear to filiform, usually 1-9 cm × 0.5-5 mm, horizontally spreading to spreading-erect, straight or somewhat hooked, often falcate, pubescent, glabrescent, or glabrous; upper stem leaves progressively smaller but mostly still leaflike. Capitula many, terminal, with usually 7-12 florets. Involucre cylindric, usually 1.5-1.8 cm at anthesis, 1.8-2.5 × 0.5-0.8 cm in fruit. Phyllaries puberulent; outer phyllaries triangular-ovate to linear-lanceolate, longest 1/2-2/3 as long as inner phyllaries; inner phyllaries usually 5 or 6. Florets yellow. Achene brownish, dark green, or blackish, cylindric, 7-8 mm, with elevated smooth or tuberculate ribs, glabrous. Pappus dirty white to straw-colored, 1.3-1.8 cm. Fl. and fr. May-Oct.
Home