Plant has a woody base or creeping rhizomes; several stems per plant, branching from the base; erect, slender, brittle stems, hairless and grayish-green.
Wiry, slender diffusely branching stems; opposite, thread-like, lobed leaves at lower 3/4 of the stems; yellow disc flowers; bracts inner row fused; outer row tiny and reflexed; plant often coated with white powdery substance.
Habitat
Disturbed places on sands or clays, oak/juniper woodlands, desert scrub, ponderosa pine forests.
Flower Characteristics
Disc flowers are at the end of long leafless stems; surrounded by green bracts; often with reddish brown veins; 1/2 inch wide; 1/2 inch long; no ray flowers.
Leaf and Stem Characteristics
Mainly basal; opposite along lower 1/2 to 3/4 of stems; internodes 1-1/2 to 4 inches; leaves divided into thread-like, linear or narrowly inverse lance-like lobes; 3/4 to 1-1/2 inches long; up to 1/16 inch wide.
Fruit and Seed Characteristics
Achene; 1/4 to 1/2 inch long; topped with pappus of 2 stout barbed awns; about 1/16 inch long.