Plant Description
An evergreen, densely branched shrub or small tree with numerous branches and showy fragrant white to yellowish-white flowers; may reach 25 feet on favorable sites.
A shreddy barked shrub. Leaves alternate, simple, deeply cleft into 3 lobes, glandular, dark green above, white hairs beneath; margins rolled under. Flowers fragrant, solitary on lateral branches. Achene has a feathery persistent style.
Habitat
Found on dry rocky slopes, plateaus in grasslands, sagebrush and pinyon-juniper woodlands, and ponderosa pine forests.
Leaves
Leaves are up to 1 inch long, dark green above with white woolly hairs beneath, leathery, glandular-dotted, wedge-shaped, and divided into 3 to 5 narrow lobes, with edges rolled under.
Flowers
Flowers are very fragrant and about 1 inch in diameter with 5 rounded white petals, 5 smaller, pointed green sepals and a bushy cluster of numerous yellow stamens topped by yellow anthers.
Fruit
Fruit is a hairy 1/4 inch long achene, with 4 to 10 seeds; each seed is attached to a 2-inch long silvery, feathery plume-like tail.