A pretty perennial, from one to three feet tall, usually soft and hairy, the slender stems usually branching above and most of the leaves toothed. The flowers usually form a loose cluster at the top, the buds drooping, and the heads are from half an inch to an inch across, with yellow centers and a very feathery fringe of pink or pinkish rays. This grows in fields and woods. There is a picture in Mathews' Field Book. E. Còulteri, the large White Mountain Daisy, is a beautiful kind, from six to twenty inches tall, with bright green leaves, often toothed, sometimes downy, and the flowers usually single, an inch and a half across, usually with pure white rays. This grows in Yosemite meadows and similar mountain places, in Utah, California, and Colorado. E. compósitus is a little Alpine plant, forming dense leafy mats, easily recognized by the broad tips of the leaves being cut into lobes, usually three. The flowers are an inch or more across, with violet or white rays. This grows on the granite peaks around Yosemite, and in other Alpine regions, as far east as Colorado.
Yellow Fleabane—E. aureus.
Seaside Daisy—Erigeron glaucus.
Large Mountain Fleabane—E. salsuginosus.
Ptilonella
Ptilonélla scàbra (Blepharipappus)
White
Spring
Oreg., Ida., Nev., Cal.
A charming little desert plant, graceful and airy in character, with stiff, very slender, branching, roughish stems, about ten inches tall, and dull green leaves, very rough to the touch, with the edges rolled back. The delicate little flowers are an inch across, with pure white rays, and with white centers, which are specked with black and pink. This is common on the mesas around Reno and looks much like some kinds of Madia.
Desert Holly
Perèzia nàna
Pink
Spring
Ariz., Tex.
An odd little desert plant, only two or three inches high, with stiff, smooth, dull bluish-green leaves, with prickly edges, like holly leaves but not so stiff, and one quite pretty, light purplish-pink flower, the head about an inch long, with purplish bracts. The effect of the whole plant is of a little sprig stuck into the sand.
Brown-foot
Perèzia Wrìghtii
Pink
Spring
Ariz., Tex.
Much like the last, but more commonplace looking, for the flowers are smaller and the plant much larger. It is about a foot high and grows among rocks, and the general effect of dull mauve is rather pretty, though not bright in color. The common name alludes to the plant being covered with a mass of brown hairs at the base.
There are several kinds of Gutierrezia, all American.