Montana Field Guide

Taprooted perennial with a woody, branched caudex. Stems ascending to erect, simple, 5–40 cm. Herbage sparsely to densely wooly-villous. Leaves basal and alternate, petiolate; basal blades obovate, 5–40 mm long, lobed at the tip; cauline blades lanceolate to oblanceolate, 1–4 cm long, entire or pinnately divided into 3 to 7 linear-oblanceolate lobes. Heads radiate, solitary on peduncles 3–15 cm long; involucre hemispheric, 5–12 mm high; phyllaries 5 to 13, narrowly ovate in 2 series, wooly, viscid; receptacle flat, smooth. Ray flowers female, 11 to 13, yellow; ligules 5–16 mm long, glandular. Disk flowers perfect; corollas 2–5 mm long, yellow, glandular; style with short-hairy appendages. Pappus of 6 to 12 erose, white scales. Achenes 4-angled, obconic, 3–5 mm long, glabrous (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Our plants are variety lanatum or integrifolium (Hook.) Smiley.

Stony soil of grasslands, sagebrush steppe, open forest, open slopes (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).