Duration: Annual. Nativity: Native. Lifeform: Forb/Herb. General: Low wooly annual herb, 3-15 cm tall; stems slender, decumbent to ascending, sparingly branched, and loosely floccose (covered with tufts of long, tangled hairs). Leaves: Alternate and sessile; blades linear to narrowly oblanceolate, 5-20 mm long by 1-3 mm wide, acute to apiculate at apex and gradually narrowing toward base, sparsely wooly, with entire margins. Flowers: Flower heads white and yellow, radiate, and solitary on slender peduncles 1-6 cm long; involucre (ring of bracts wrapped around flower head) bell-shaped, 5-6 mm high and 3-5 mm wide, the bracts (phyllaries) 8-11 in a single series, oblanceolate with short-acuminate tips, floccose; ray florets 8-10, the laminae (ray petals) white, occasinally with red veins, 3-7 mm long; disc florets 10-20, the corollas yellow to orange, 3 mm long. Fruits: Achenes linear-obpyramidal, 3 mm long, black, sparsely strigose (with straight appressed hairs); topped with a pappus of 4-5 slender awns about the length of the corolla, and several shorter, obtuse scales. Ecology: Found on arid mesas, gravelly slopes and in washes, from 1,000-3,000 ft (305-914 m); flowers March-April. Distribution: AZ, CA, NV, NM, UT; south to Baja Calif., MEX. Notes: Distinguished by its wooly herbage, slender awn-tipped achenes, and white to rosy ray petals; look carefully, as these tiny little plants are often overlooked when flowering in spring. Etymology: Eriophyllum comes from Greek erion for wool and phyllon for leaf; lanosum means woolly.

Santa Catalina Mountains
Catalina State Park
Location: Branch of Southerland Loop Trail.
3/22/17

See SEINet Pictures and Description

See FireFly Forest Pictures and Description