General: Medium to tall shrub, 1-2 (3) m tall; stems erect, freely and rigidly branched, twigs woolly-hairy, especially when young.
Leaves: Alternate, deciduous, in small bundles on short lateral spur-shoots, wedge-shaped, mostly 1-2 cm long, 3-toothed at the tip, silvery-greenish and hairy on the upper surface, grey-woolly beneath, the margins rolled under.
Flowers: Inflorescence of single, short-stalked flowers at ends of short, lateral, leafy spur-shoots; corollas yellow to cream, wheel-shaped, the petals 5, egg- to spoon-shaped, 5-9 mm long, early-deciduous; calyces bell-shaped, woolly- or cobwebby-hairy and stalked-glandular, 5-lobed, the lobes oblong-egg-shaped, 3-4 mm long; ovaries superior; stamens about 25.
Fruits: Large achenes, about 15 mm long including the persistent style, ellipsoid-spindle-shaped, somewhat leathery, velvety-hairy and glandular; seeds 1, black, pear-shaped, 6-8 mm long.
Dry open slopes, grasslands and sagebrush shrublands in the steppe and adjoining lower montane zones; common in extreme S BC, east of the Coast-Cascade Mountains and south of about 51degreeN; S to MT, WY, CO, 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)
