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 Bracts and flower heads Max Licher @http://swbiodiversity.org, Usage Rights: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) |  Leaves Patrick Alexander @http://swbiodiversity.org, Usage Rights: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) |  Leaves Patrick Alexander @http://swbiodiversity.org, Usage Rights: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) |  Plant Max Licher @http://swbiodiversity.org, Usage Rights: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) | | |
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Origin:
Native
Life Cycle:
Perennial Similar Species: Senecio eremophilus var. kingii, S. eremophilus var. macdougalii, S. fendleri
General Desc:
Leafy perennial with 1 to several loosely clustered reddish or purplish stems. Deeply notched leaves up to 5 inches long grow around the base and up the stem. Many rounded clusters of yellow daisy-like flower heads about 1 inch wide grow at the stem tops.
Identification notes: Stems 1 to several, often reddish or purplish; herbage without hairs or nearly so; leaves pinnatifid or somewhat palmately lobed, basal leaves wither before flowers appear, yellow flower heads in rounded clusters of 3 to 12, nodding especially when young.
Height:
To about 3-1/3 feet tall
Habitat Description: Found in sandy, rocky soils in meadows, streamsides, damp thickets (dense groups of bushes or trees), mountain slopes, moist coniferous forests, open woodlands, roadsides and disturbed habitats.
Plant Communities:
Pinyon Juniper Woodland, Montane Conifer Forest, Riparian, Disturbed Areas
Elevation: 6500 - 12000 feet
Color:
Yellow, ages to a brown center
Shape:
Daisy or dandelion-like in round clusters
Tubular:
N
Flowering Period:
Jul - Sep
Description:
The flower head consists of about 8 narrow petal-like ray florets surrounding a center of many tube-like disc florets which elongate and turn brown when mature. Below the flower heads are about 8 or 13 thin leaf-like bracts with green or black tips.
Leaf Color:
Green
Leaf Type:
Simple
Leaf Shape:
Pinnatifid
Leaf Margin:
Toothed
Leaf Attachment:
Basal and alternate
Leaves Clasp:
N
Hairs:
No
Spines:
N
Leaf Description:
Leaves have jagged edges or deep lobes. Upper leaves are often stalkless with a feather-like shape. Lower leaves often have stalks and a lobed somewhat hand-like shape. Leaves are reduced in size up the stem. Basal leaves wither before the plant blooms.
Fruit Type: Achene
Fruit Notes: The fruit is dry, oblong, smooth to minutely hairy along its veins and has a tuft of 30 to 80 white to straw-colored, silky, hairlike bristles at its tip (pappus). When ripe, the fruits in the flower head form a small, fuzzy, dandelion-like "puffball".
Seed Notes: The fruit contains 1 seed. It does not open to release the seed when ripe. The gray hairs on the surface of the seed as well as the tuft of hairlike bristles at the tip of the fruit aid in the wind dispersal of the seeds.
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