Montana Field Guide

Rhizomatous perennial. Stems erect, 20–80 cm. Herbage glabrous; stems puberulent. Leaves cauline, sessile, linear to lanceolate, entire, 4–10 cm long, the lowest deciduous. Inflorescence leafy-paniculate, usually open with many heads; peduncles puberulent. Involucre campanulate, 5–8 mm high; phyllaries weakly imbricate to subequal; the outer oblanceolate, glabrate to ciliate, green with white bases. Rays 20 to 40, pink; ligules 5–12 mm long. Disk flowers 35 to 60, yellow to pinkish; corollas 4–7 mm long. Achenes cylindric, ca. 3 mm long, pubescent (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Moist soil of meadows, thickets, often along streams, wetlands; valleys, montane (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 vagans, Bombus bifarius, Bombus borealis, Bombus centralis, Bombus fervidus, Bombus flavifrons, Bombus huntii, Bombus mixtus, Bombus rufocinctus, Bombus sylvicola, Bombus ternarius, Bombus terricola, Bombus sitkensis, Bombus pensylvanicus, Bombus griseocollis, Bombus impatiens, Bombus insularis, Bombus suckleyi, Bombus bohemicus, and Bombus kirbiellus (Plath 1934, Heinrich 1976, Thorp et al. 1983, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Colla et al. 2011, Koch et al. 2012, Williams et al. 2014, Tripoldi and Szalanski 2015).