General: Biennial or short-lived perennial herb from weak fibrous roots; stems erect, solitary, simple or more usually few-branched above, sparsely to densely spreading, stiff-hairy, 2-60 cm tall.
Leaves: Basal leaves oblanceolate or sometimes spoon-shaped, stalked, 1-15 cm long including the stalks, 1-12 mm wide, sparsely to densely stiff-hairy or nearly glabrous, margins often stiff-hairy; stem leaves similar, becoming linear and reduced upwards.
Flowers: Heads with ray and disk flowers, borne on the single stem or more often nearly erect branches; involucres 4-9 mm tall; involucral bracts lanceolate, thin, light green, sparsely to moderately stiff-hairy, commonly purplish near the tips, usually graduated; ray flowers white or sometimes pinkish, numerous, 2-3 mm long, slightly surpassing the disk flowers; disk flowers 3.5-5.0 mm long.
Fruits: Achenes oblong, 2-nerved, sparsely stiff-hairy; pappus of single, or sometimes double, white hairlike bristles, evidently surpassing the disk corollas, sometimes with a few slender and inconspicuous short scales.
Moist to mesic meadows, streambanks, fens, bogs and forest openings in the montane and subalpine zones; common in S BC east of the Coast-Cascade Mountains, less frequent northward; N to AK, YT, and NT, E to PQ, and S to NM and CA.
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)
