Montana Field Guide

Rhizomatous perennial. Stems erect, 40–100 cm. Herbage glabrate; stems puberulent in vertical lines from leaf bases. Leaves cauline, sessile, linear to lanceolate, entire, 5–15 cm long, often fascicled, the lowest deciduous. Inflorescence open, leafy-paniculate, usually with many heads; peduncles villous. Involucre narrowly campanulate, 5–9 mm high; phyllaries linear-lanceolate, weakly imbricate, glabrate to ciliate, green with white bases. Rays 18 to 45, white to blue; ligules 4–12 mm long. Disk flowers 18 to 52, yellow; corollas 4–7 mm long. Achenes obovoid, 1–3 mm long, sparsely hairy. Moist, sometimes saline soil of meadows, usually around streams, ponds; plains, valleys (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Montana plants are var. hesperium (A. Gray) G.L. Nesom (Lesica et al. 2012).

Moist, sometimes saline soil of meadows, usually around streams, ponds; plains, valleys (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).