Montana Field Guide

Rhizomatous perennial. Stems erect, 20–100 cm. Herbage glabrate with ciliate petiolate. Leaves: basal and cauline, petiolate; blades lanceolate to narrowly ovate, serrate, cordate to rounded at the base, 3–12 cm long, wing-petiolate, gradually reduced upward. Inflorescence paniculate with few leaf-like bracts. Involucre campanulate, 5–7 mm high; phyllaries linear-lanceolate, acuminate, unequal, glabrous, green, scaious. Rays 14 to 20, blue; ligules 10–15 mm long. Disk flowers 14–25, yellow; corollas 4–6 mm long. Achenes obovoid, 1–2 mm long, glabrous (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Open forest, meadows; valleys, montane; collected in Cascade and Meagher cos. over 100 years ago (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).