Flora of North America species comparison

1–3+, decumbent to ascending (curved or straight, sometimes stout, green to reddish brown), glabrous.

1–5+, ascending to erect, strigose, villous, or lanate, especially distally.

(dark green to bluish green) thin, apices acute to acuminate, mucronate, faces glabrate or glabrous;

basal withering by flowering (vernal rosettes developed at flowering), petiolate or sessile (petioles winged, sheathing, ciliate), blades oblanceolate to obovate, 10–70 × 3–5 mm, bases cuneate to attenuate, margins entire or rarely sparsely serrate distally, apices obtuse to rounded, cuspidate;

proximal cauline usually withering by flowering, petiolate or sessile (petioles narrowly winged, bases ± clasping), blades oblanceolate to linear-oblanceolate, 70–105 × 2–4 cm, bases attenuate to cuneate, or ± auriculate, ± clasping;

distal sessile, blades linear-lanceolate to narrowly subulate, 5–65 × 1–4 mm, progressively reduced distally, bases subauriculate, ± clasping, margins entire, with marginal cilia proximally, faces glabrous; reduced array leaves often in fascicles along branches, markedly 3-nerved.

(grayish green) thin to firm, margins entire, apices acute, faces strigose;

basal withering by flowering, petiolate, blades narrowly oblanceolate, 50–100(–150) × 4–12(–15) mm, bases attenuate, margins scabrous to ciliate;

proximalmost cauline often withering by flowering (often with tufts of leaves in axils), sessile, blades linear to narrowly oblong, 30–70(–100) × 4–8(–10) mm, bases attenuate or cuneate, apices acute;

distal sessile, blades 15–80 × 2–8(–10) mm, bases cuneate, sometimes auriculate.

0.4–2 cm, mostly borne on secondary branches, glabrous, bracts 3–6, linear to subulate, stiff, distalmost sometimes surpassing involucres, glabrous.

densely short-strigose, bracts 1–6, linear-oblong, strigose.

cylindric, (4.5–)5.5–7.1(–8.5) mm.

campanulate, 4–7 mm.

(13–)20–28(–34);

corollas usually blue-violet, rarely white, laminae (7–)9–15(–19) × 0.6–2.1 mm.

15–40;

corollas pale violet, laminae 8–12(–15) × 1–1.5(–2) mm.

(28–)33–51(–68);

corollas yellow turning brown, 3.4–4.6(–5.5) mm, tubes shorter than funnelform throats, lobes lanceolate, 0.5–1 mm.

25–70+;

corollas yellow, 4–6 mm, lobes triangular, 0.4–0.8 mm.

in 4–6 series, oblong-lanceolate to -oblanceolate to sometimes linear (innermost), unequal to subequal, bases indurate 1/4–2/3, margins narrowly scarious, erose, hyaline, sometimes sparsely ciliolate, green zones diamond-shaped to lanceolate, apices acute to long-acuminate, involute, spreading, mucronate to apiculate, faces glabrous.

in 3–6 series, narrowly oblanceolate or linear (outer) to linear (inner), unequal, bases indurate, margins entire, narrowly scarious, ciliate, green zones obovate to elliptic, apices obtuse, mucronulate, faces usually strigose.

in leafy, paniculiform to racemiform arrays, branches nearly divaricate to ascending, straight, sometimes secund, secondarily ramified, leafy with array leaves ± stiff, asscending to appressed.

(3–50+) in narrowly paniculiform arrays, branches 2–10(–20) cm.

tan to brown, obovoid, ± compressed, 1.5–2.1 mm, 4–5-nerved (thin), faces sparsely strigillose;

pappi white, 3–5 mm.

brown, cylindric to obovoid, not compressed, 1.5–3 mm, ribs 5–8, faces hairy;

pappi whitish, 4–6 mm.

= 64.

= 36.