Duration: Annual. Nativity: Native. Lifeform: Forb/Herb. General: Herbaceous annuals, to 50 cm tall, stems 1-5, slender, usually branching from the base, glabrous, leafy, with milky sap. Leaves: Mostly basal, to 10 cm long, proximal oblanceolate to lance-linear, sometimes pinnately lobed, the lobes up to 3 mm wide, not fleshy, ultimate margins usually dentate, faces glabrous, becoming alternate and reduced apically, the margins 2-4-dentate near the bases or entire. Flowers: Heads small, radiate, rays yellow, sometimes white, inconspicuous, the outer rays exserted 1-2 mm, receptacles not chaffy, involucres 6-7 mm high, small bracts around the calyx, of 5-12, lance-deltate to lanceolate bractlets, phyllaries subequal, 8-15 or more in 2 or more series, these lance-linear to linear, the abaxial faces glabrous, inflorescences with many heads borne in terminal panicles. Fruits: Achenes oblong-linear, truncate, ribbed, crowned with a ring of minute teeth. Pappus of soft bristles, 1-2 of them stiffer and persistent, the remainder deciduous more or less in a ring. Ecology: Found along streams, in cleared areas, burns, slides, chaparral, and creosote bush shrub from 2,500-4,500 ft (762-1372 m); flowering March-June. Distribution: Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico; Mexico. Etymology: Malacothrix is from malakos, soft and thrix, hair, while stebbinsii is named for George Ledyard Stebbins Jr. (1906-2000) an American geneticist and evolutionary biologist.

Santa Catalina Mountains
Sabino Canyon Recreation Area
Location: Beside road near Bear Canyon Road bridge.
3/21/17

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