General: Perennial herb from a fibrous-rooted rhizome or branched, woody stem-base; stems erect, branched above, glandular or sparsely long-hairy to glabrous, 0.5-1.5 m tall.
Leaves: Basal leaves reduced and scalelike below; stem leaves numerous and nearly alike, lanceolate or elliptic to egg-shaped, unstalked, entire or nearly so, closely reticulate, subglabrous or sometimes glandular or somewhat hairy below, 5-10 cm long, 1.5-3.5 cm wide.
Flowers: Heads with ray and disk flowers, few to many in a rounded inflorescence; involucres 8-12 mm tall; involucral bracts graduated with a strong midvein, tending to be keeled, linear to lanceolate, with long-pointed tips or the inner abruptly sharp-pointed, papery below, greenish above, the inner purple-margined and marginally fringed with long hairs; ray flowers commonly 13, sometimes only 8, white, often pink with age, sometimes mauve, 15-25 mm long; disk flowers yellow.
Fruits: Achenes appressed-hairy; pappus tawny with a few outer bristles.
Mesic meadows, avalanche tracks and open forests in the montane and lower subalpine zones; frequent in S BC in and E of the Coast-Cascade Mountains; E to SW AB and S to CO, NV 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)
