Gamochaeta purpurea
Gamochaeta ustulata
purple everlasting-cudweed, spoon-leaf cudweed, spoon-leaf purple everlasting
featherweed, Pacific cudweed, purple cudweed, spoon-leaf cudweed
erect to decumbent-ascending, densely but loosely pannose or pannose-tomentose.
erect to ascending (commonly decumbent-ascending and rhizome like), densely white-pannose.
basal and cauline, basal and proximal cauline usually withering before flowering;
blades oblanceolate to spatulate, 1–6 cm × 5–14 mm (distal similar, at least among proximal heads, margins sometimes sinuate), faces usually bicolor, abaxial closely white-pannose, adaxial usually sparsely arachnose (basal cells of hairs persistent, expanded, glassy), sometimes glabrescent.
basal and cauline, basal usually withering before flowering, blades spatulate to oblanceolate, 2–5 cm × 6–12(–35) mm (little smaller distally), faces bicolor, abaxial white-pannose, adaxial sparsely to densely arachnose-tomentose.
turbinate-cylindric, 4–4.5 mm, bases sparsely arachnose.
campanulo-urceolate, 4.5–5 mm, bases sparsely arachnose.
bisexual 3–4; all corollas usually purplish distally.
bisexual (3–)4–6; all corollas usually yellowish, sometimes purplish distally.
in 4–5 series, outer ovate-triangular, lengths 1/3–2/3 inner, apices acute-acuminate, inner triangular-lanceolate (usually striate), laminae purplish (in bud) to whitish or silvery (in fruit), apices acute (not apiculate).
in 4–6 series, outer (brown or greenish brown) broadly ovate-triangular, lengths ca. 1/2 inner, apices acute to acute-acuminate (mid phyllaries ± keeled near apices), inner oblong, laminae usually dark brown, sometimes purplish (at stereome-lamina junction), apices rounded to obtuse, apiculate.
initially in continuous spiciform arrays 1–4(–5) cm × (5–)10–15 mm, later interrupted (glomerules widely separated, bracteate, the proximal often on relatively long peduncles).
in usually continuous, rarely interrupted (proximally), cylindric arrays 1–6(–8+) cm × 12–18 mm (pressed).
(tan) 0.6–0.7 mm.
(tan to brownish) 0.7–0.8 mm.
= 14, 28.
Gamochaeta purpurea
Gamochaeta ustulata
Gamochaeta purpurea apparently is native to North America and adventive elsewhere.
Basal cells of hairs on adaxial faces of leaves are expanded and glassy (versus hairs filiform to bases in most other species) and are diagnostic for Gamochaeta purpurea. From Maryland northward, plants of G. purpurea produce relatively small basal rosettes and relatively shallow fibrous roots or a filiform taproot; southward and southwestward, the basal rosettes often are larger and the fibrous roots are denser.
Gamochaeta purpurea apparently occurs widely through the world as a weed; it is fairly clearly native to eastern North America, where it is the least weedy of the gamochaetas. Plants of G. purpurea in southern Arizona along perennial streams at the base of the Santa Catalina Mountains were first collected in 1903 (G. L. Nesom 2004) and were, perhaps, accidentally established through visitation; the same sites are heavily infested by other, more aggressive, nonnative species. Collections of G. purpurea also have been made at higher elevations in the Santa Catalina, Rincon, and Chiricahua mountains, where the species is less likely to have been introduced by human activity. It also seems unlikely that plants in scattered Mexican localities were introduced there by human activity.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Gamochaeta ustulata usually has been included in G. purpurea; it differs mostly in its longer duration, thicker and shorter stems, larger, more compact arrays of larger, brown heads, and aspects of phyllary morphology.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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- Local floras: BC, CA, OR, WA
- Local Web sites: CalFlora, CalPhotos, Flora NW, PNW Herbaria
- WildflowerSearch
- iNaturalist (observations)
- USDA Plants Database
- LBJ Wildflower Center
- SEINet
- Plants of the World Online
- Encyclopedia of Life
- Wikipedia
- Google Image Search
