General: Perennial herb from a stout taproot and a thickened stem-base; stems curved or decumbent at the base, several, simple, hoary with short, dense, spreading hairs, 5-30 cm tall.
Leaves: Basal leaves triple-nerved, lanceolate or spoon-shaped, entire, apex usually rounded or obtuse, 2-14 cm long, 2-15 mm wide, hairy like the stems; stem leaves several to many, egg-shaped-oblong to linear, reduced upwards.
Flowers: Heads with ray and disk flowers, solitary to many, the disks 9-19 mm wide; involucres 4-7 mm tall; involucral bracts glandular and usually grey-hairy, strongly to slightly graduated, evidently thickened on the back, lance-oblong, tapering to a slender tip; ray flowers 30-100, blue, white, or pink, 5-15 mm long, 1-2.5 mm wide; disk flowers 3.2-4.4 mm long.
Fruits: Achenes 2-nerved, hairy; pappus double, the inner of 14-25 firm bristles, the outer evident with short bristly scales.
Dry grassy river terraces or meadows in the montane to alpine zones (S Rocky Mountains); infrequent in EC and extreme SE BC; N to AK, YT and NT, E to MB, and S to NE, AZ and WA.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
