Montana Field Guide

Taprooted perennial, often from a branched caudex. Stems erect, often unbranched, 10–70 cm. Herbage glabrate to arachnoid. Leaves short-petiolate; blade linear-lanceolate, 10–30 cm long with 10 to 20 pairs of shallow, closely-spaced lobes. Inflorescence capitate or spike-like with few, nearly sessile heads. Involucres broadly campanulate, 2–3 cm high, enclosed by uppermost leaves that obscure the phyllaries; phyllaries arachnoid especially on the margins, subequal in 4 to 5 series, green, linear-lanceolate; outer with spine-tips 7–10 mm long; inner acuminate. Disk corollas white, 17–23 mm long. Achenes 5–7 mm long (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Our plants are variety murdockii S.L. Welsh

Meadows, turf, fellfields; subalpine, alpine (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

POLLINATORS
The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap: Bombus vagans, Bombus appositus, Bombus auricomus, Bombus bifarius, Bombus borealis, Bombus centralis, Bombus fervidus, Bombus flavifrons, Bombus frigidus, Bombus huntii, Bombus mixtus, Bombus nevadensis, Bombus rufocinctus, Bombus sylvicola, Bombus ternarius, Bombus terricola, Bombus sitkensis, Bombus occidentalis, Bombus pensylvanicus, Bombus bimaculatus, Bombus griseocollis, Bombus impatiens, Bombus insularis, Bombus suckleyi, Bombus bohemicus, and Bombus flavidus (Thorp et al. 1983, Mayer et al. 2000, Wilson et al. 2010, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Colla et al. 2011, Koch et al. 2012, Williams et al. 2014, Tripoldi and Szalanski 2015).