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

General:
Perennial herb from a taproot and woody base; stems erect, 1-2, grey-woolly or sometimes eventually becoming glabrous, 15-70 cm tall.

Leaves:
Basal leaves linear to lanceolate, long-stalked, pinnately or bipinnately divided into linear or lanceolate segments or rarely entire, greyish-woolly or more often nearly glabrous, 10-35 cm long; stem leaves similar to the basal ones, becoming linear and entire upwards.

Flowers:
Heads with strap-shaped flowers, 3-40 in a flat- to round-topped inflorescence; involucres 8-15 mm tall, cylindric; involucral bracts greyish-woolly to nearly glabrous or rarely glabrous, with or without black, glandless bristles on the inner and sometimes the outer bracts, the outer ones 5-10, deltoid, abruptly sharp-pointed, the longest less than 1/2 as long as the 8-10 inner ones, these lanceolate, abruptly sharp-pointed or obtuse; ray flowers yellow, 10-18 mm long.

Fruits:
Achenes usually greenish or rarely brownish, 3-10 mm long, slender, weakly to strongly ribbed, mostly tapering to a slender tip at the apex; pappus white, of hairlike bristles.

Notes:
Two subspecies occur in BC:

1. Plants relatively small, 15-35 cm tall; heads 3-18; involucral bracts with some glandless bristles...................... ssp. atribarba

1. Plants taller, 30-70 cm tall; heads 10-40; involucral bracts nearly or completely devoid of bristles...................... ssp. originalis Babc. & Stebb.