Stephanomeria pauciflora
Stephanomeria cichoriacea
brownplume wirelettuce, few-flower wirelettuce, prairie skeletonplant, wire-lettuce
chicoryleaf wire-lettuce, Fort Tejon milk aster, silver rock-lettuce
1–5+, divaricately and intricately branched (often forming dense bushes), usually glabrous, rarely tomentose.
single, simple or virgately branched, woolly-pubescent when young, glabrescent.
withered at flowering;
basal blades linear-lanceolate, runcinate, 3–7 cm, margins pinnately lobed (faces glabrous);
cauline much reduced and bractlike.
green at flowering (spreading at bases);
blades oblanceolate to spatulate, 10–20 cm, margins entire or irregularly toothed, teeth remote, faces woolly-pubescent, glabrescent;
cauline much reduced distally, margins entire or irregularly toothed.
3–10 mm.
± 0.
8–11 mm (phyllaries 4–6, glabrous).
12–15 mm (phyllaries 20–25 in 2–3 series, appressed, 2–15 mm, unequal, puberulent; receptacles pitted, each socket 5-sided, surrounded by minute, raised, scaly fringe).
5–6.
10–13.
of appressed bractlets.
0 (or bractlets intergrading with phyllaries).
borne singly along branches.
borne singly along branches.
tan, 3.5–5 mm, faces tuberculate, grooved;
pappi of 15–20, usually tan, rarely white, bristles (connate in groups of 2–4, bases persistent), plumose on distal 80%.
tan or grayish tan, 5–6 mm, faces smooth, grooved (grooves sometimes absent or only visible as fine lines or striations);
pappi of 20–25, tan to pale brown bristles (persistent), wholly plumose.
= 16.
= 16.
Stephanomeria pauciflora
Stephanomeria cichoriacea
Stephanomeria pauciflora generally grows as an intricately branched, often rounded bush. Occasional plants, usually from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and southern Utah, have long, flexuous stems and branches, an architecture that resembles one of the typical forms of S. tenuifolia. Some plants of S. pauciflora have white pappi, also typical of S. tenuifolia. It is not known if these plants represent uncommon and unusual individuals or if they are from populations in which all plants have those traits. It is also not known whether such plants of S. pauciflora grow near populations of S. tenuifolia; if so, they may result from interspecific hybridization. That is a possibility; experimental hybrid plants produced by crossing individuals from the two species were about 20% fertile. Such fertility suggests the species are sufficiently compatible that fully fertile segregants with variously intermediate morphologies could be expected where they hybridize in nature. The experimental crosses were made reciprocally between S. pauciflora from Riverside County, California (L. D. Gottlieb 6653), and S. tenuifolia from Wheeler County, Oregon (L. D. Gottlieb 6692); specimens of the six F1 hybrid plants that were produced are deposited at DAV. Plants of S. pauciflora that are densely tomentose throughout are occasionally found, particularly in the deserts of California and Nevada, and have been named S. cinerea or S. pauciflora var. parishii.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Stephanomeria cichoriacea grows primarily in the coastal mountains from southern Monterey County to the San Bernardino Mountains, Santa Ana Mountains, and the Channel Islands.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
CA
KS Wildflowers
SW CO Wildflowers
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist
USDA Plants Database
