First-year rosettes are blue-green and are covered with wooly white hairs. Second-year plants produce more leaves with a flowering stem; mature plants break off and become tumbleweeds, easily spreading as many as 100,000 seeds each.
Biennial, square stems, up to 2 feet tall; stems and leaves densely hairy; rosette leaves grayish-green; flowers yellow to whitish and 2- lipped, flowering stems highly branched; sepals white, wooly with hairs; fruits 4 smooth nutlets with dark veins.
Habitat
Sagebrush communities, disturbed sites, fields, rangelands, roadsides and some agricultural crops.
Flower Characteristics
Flower stem 2 to 3 feet tall, branch 2 to 3 feet wide resembling a candelabra; whorls of flowers; sepals white-wooly, 1/2 inch long; petals 3/4 inch long; upper lip arched; lower lip shaped like a pouch.
Leaf and Stem Characteristics
Fine, wooly hairs cover stems, new leaves and leaf undersides; prominent veins on mature leaves; grayish-green, stemmed rosette leaves 4 to 12 inches long; opposite stem leaves; smaller than basal leaves; leaves become smaller toward top of stem.
Fruit and Seed Characteristics
4, smooth with dark veins.