Taprooted perennial herbs, often with a branched caudex. Stems erect, often branched above, 6–40 cm. Herbage sparsely to densely tomentose. Leaves cauline and mainly basal, petiolate, 1–8 cm long; blades deeply 1–2-times pinnately divided into mostly remote, linear lobes. Inflorescence corymbiform with few to numerous heads. Heads discoid; involucres hemispheric, 6–11 mm high; phyllaries 5–13, lanceolate to oblong, tomentose, in 2–3 unequal series, membranous-margined; receptacle flat, naked. Disk flowers perfect, yellow, 2–4 mm long, glandular; tubes ca. as long as the dilated throat; style branch appendages hairy. Pappus of several short, hyaline scales. Achenes obconic, 4–5-angled, 4–5 mm long, densely strigose (
Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).
We have varieties
luteus (Nutt.) B.L. Turner and
polycephalus (Osterh.) B.L. Turner.
Grasslands, sagebrush steppe, coniferous woodlands, eroding slopes; plains, valleys to montane (
Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).