E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

General:
Biennial or perennial herb; stems erect, solitary to several, branched above, often spreading stiff-hairy, 20-80 cm tall.

Leaves:
Basal leaves oblanceolate or spoon-shaped, stalked, usually entire, 1-15 cm long, 1-14 mm wide; stem leaves ample or strongly reduced, egg-shaped to linear-oblong, becoming unstalked, usually entire.

Flowers:
Heads with ray and disk flowers, several to numerous on nonglandular to glandular stalks in a flat- or round-topped inflorescence; involucres 5-12 mm tall; involucral bracts lanceolate, finely glandular and/or stiff-hairy, generally subequal, green or more or less purplish; ray flowers numerous, although sometimes inconspicuous, in several series, of two types, the outer with a long threadlike tube and narrow pink to purplish or white erect ray flowers, these about 2.5-4.5 mm long, the inner female flowers rayless or nearly so with a tubular corolla; disk flowers 4.2-6.2 mm long, tubular.

Fruits:
Achenes sparsely hairy, 2-nerved; pappus of about 25-35 slender, remotely finely-barbed, white or more or less reddish bristles, surpassing the disk flowers.

Notes:
Three varieties occur in BC.

1. Stalks of the heads and involucres glandless, or nearly so............... var. elatus (Hook.) Newsom

1. Stalks of the heads and involucres more or less glandular.

2. Plants usually 30-80 cm tall; heads several to numerous............... var. asteroides (Andrz. ex Bess.) Newsom

2. Plants usually 2-30 cm tall; heads several or solitary............... var. debilis (A. Gray) Newsom