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

General:
Perennial herb, from an ascending, fibrous-rooted rhizome or stem-base; stems leafy, erect or sometimes ascending, simple or branched only in the inflorescence, sparsely to densely hairy or sometimes glandular at least in the upper portion, 10-50 cm tall.

Leaves:
Basal leaves lance-shaped to narrowly elliptic, hairy and often glandular, stalked, entire to toothed; stem leaves opposite, 2-4 pairs (rarely 1 or 5), reduced and becoming unstalked and entire upwards.

Flowers:
Heads with ray and disk flowers, solitary to 5 (rarely 7), the bases densely white-hairy; involucres 10-18 mm tall; involucral bracts lance-shaped, hairy, and usually glandular; ray flowers yellow, 10-16, toothed at the apex; disk flowers yellow.

Fruits:
Achenes 4-8 mm long, uniformly densely hairy and often glandular; pappus white, finely-barbed.

Notes:
Two subspecies occur in BC.

1. Plants and involucres conspicuously white, woolly long-hairy; stems 5-20 cm tall, common in the alpine zone throughout BC east of the Coast-Cascade Mountains......................... ssp. tomentosa (Macoun) G. W. Dougl. & G. Ruyle-Dougl.

1. Plants and involucres never conspicuously white, woolly long-hairy; stems 10-25 (rarely 30) cm tall frequent in N and E BC...................... ssp. angustifolia

(Note modified from the original)