Montana Field Guide

Fibrous-rooted from a short rhizome. Stems ascending to erect, 4–10 cm. Herbage glabrate to sparsely arachnoid especially at basal leaf bases. Leaves thick; basal blades suborbicular to obovate, dentate, 5–20 mm long; cauline, sessile, lanceolate to oblanceolate, entire to pinnately lobed. Inflorescence 1 (2) heads. Heads radiate; involucres 9–15 mm high; phyllaries 21, glabrous, purplish. Rays 10 to 13; ligules 7–11 mm long. Disk corollas 5–8 mm long. Achenes 2–4 mm long, glabrous (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Lesica (2012) treats this species as Senecio cymbalaria and indicates that Senecio conterminus should be considered a synonym of S. cymbalaria. Others treat the species as Packera cymbalaria (Pursh) W.A. Weber & A. Love. Some sources, however, accept both Packera contermina and P. cymbalaria as distinct species .

Moist to dry, stony soil of fellfields, moraine, rock outcrops; alpine (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

POLLINATORS
The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap: Bombus bifarius, Bombus flavifrons, Bombus frigidus, Bombus huntii, Bombus melanopygus, Bombus mixtus, Bombus sylvicola, Bombus occidentalis, Bombus insularis, Bombus suckleyi, Bombus flavidus, and Bombus kirbiellus (Schmitt 1980, Thorp et al. 1983, Mayer et al. 2000, Wilson et al. 2010, Pyke et al. 2012, Koch et al. 2012, Williams et al. 2014).