Duration: Perennial. Nativity: Native. Lifeform: Subshrub. General: Perennial herbs to 35 cm tall, growing in dense tufts from a woody caudex, and sometimes from rhizomes; stems much-branched, leafy toward the base; herbage strigose-canescent to villous. Leaves: Alternate, clustered near base of plant; blades oblanceolate to spatulate, the lower leaves toothed or pinnately lobed and upper leaves entire and narrower; surfaces strigose-canescent to villous. Flowers: Flower heads showy, radiate, solitary on slender peduncles to 25 cm long; involucre (ring of bracts wrapped around flower head) hemispheric, 1-2 cm diameter, the bracts (phyllaries) 20-30 in 2-3 series, lanceolate-attenuate and villous with long white heairs; ray florets 0 or 5-14, the laminae (ray petals) yellow, often streaked with purple, deeply 3-lobed, 1-3 cm long; disc florets 60-100, the corollas yellowish with purple tips, densely glandular-hirsute, 0.5 cm high. Fruits: Achenes cone-shaped,to 3 mm long, densely silky hirsute, topped with a pappus of 5-10 dry, membranaceous paleae, these tipped with slender awns. Ecology: Often found on limestone soils on mesas, plains, and in open pine forest, from 3,500-7,000 ft (1067-2134 m); flowers April-October. Distribution: CO and UT to TX, NM and AZ; south to MEX. Notes: A distinctive, showy perennial herb with a large, roundish head of showy red-orange disc flowers surrounded by yellow rays, each with three lobes; the simple to pinnately lobed, gray-green leaves are mostly restricted to the lower portion of the plant and the seeds have a pappus of awn-tipped scales (palea). Ethnobotany: The plant was rubbed on mothers- breasts to wean infants; an infusion of the plant was used as a diuretic, to treat heartburn and nausea, and ceremonially; a poultice of the leaves was applied to treat gout, and the seeds were eaten as food. Etymology: Gaillardia is named for Gaillard de Charentonneau, an 18th century French patron of botany; pinnatifida means pinnately cut.

Santa Catalina Mountains
Oracle State Park
Location: Nature Loop Trail near parking area
4/16/17

See SEINet Pictures and Description

See FireFly Forest Pictures and Description