This forms a clump from one to three feet high, with many erect stems, white with woolly down, at least when young, and crowded with alternate, pale grayish-green leaves, thin and soft in texture and covered with down. The flower-heads are an inch across, with purplish-pink rays and dark yellow centers, and contrast rather prettily with the pale foliage. In Yosemite this grows on rocky ledges below five thousand feet and blooms late. It is common from Monterey to Santa Barbara, blooming at almost all seasons, and is very variable.
Psilóstrophe tagetìna var. sparsiflòra (Riddellia)
Yellow
Spring, summer
Arizona
These flowers do not look much like those of a composite, but give more the effect of yellow Wallflowers. The plant is very attractive, from one to two feet tall, with alternate, bluish-green leaves, most of them toothless, and handsome clusters of lemon-yellow flowers. They are each about three-quarters of an inch across, delicately scented, and usually have four large rays, mixed with a few smaller and more irregularly shaped, all much more like petals than rays and becoming papery in fading. The picture is of a plant growing in the Grand Canyon.
Paper Flowers
Psilóstrophe Coòperi
Yellow
Spring
Southwest
A pretty, compact, shrubby plant, woody below, about a foot high, with tangled branches, pale downy twigs, and thickish, dull green, downy leaves. The pretty flowers are an inch and a quarter across, with an orange-yellow center and five or six, large, clear bright yellow rays, twisted to one side and puckered at the base, turning back and becoming papery as they fade. This plant is at its best in sandy soil and is very effective in the desert. When fully developed it is very symmetrical in outline, forming a charming yellow globe of flowers.
There are several kinds of Xylorrhiza, nearly related to the Aster group and by some authorities regarded as Asters.
Woolly Aster—Coreothrogyne filaginifolia.
Psilostrophe tagetina—var. sparsiflora.
Paper Flowers—P. Cooperi.
Xylorrhiza
Xylorrhìza tortifòlia
Lilac
Spring
Southwest, Utah, Col.
A handsome plant, growing in clumps over two feet high, with prickly leaves and beautiful flowers, two inches and a half across, with rays shading from bright lilac to nearly white and yellow centers. This is common in the Grand Canyon.