Machaeranthera bigelovii

Family: Asteraceae
Common Name: Bigelow's tansyaster
Symbol: MABI
Description: Duration: Perennial Nativity: Native Lifeform: Forb/Herb General: Biennial to short-lived perennial herbs, 10-80 cm tall; stems erect, moderately branched; herbage sometimes puberulent or canescent, stipitate-glandular. Leaves: Alternate and sessile along the stems; blades linear to lanceolate or oblanceolate, 2-8 cm long, margins entire to irregularly dentate or serrate, faces glabrous or puberulent, often sparsely stipitate-glandular; upper leaves sometimes clasping the stems. Flowers: Flower heads showy, radiate, purple with yellow centers, at the tips of branchlets; involucres broadly turbinate to hemispheric, 7-15 mm high and one to three times as wide, the bracts (phyllaries) in 5-10 well-graduated series, the outer phyllaries much shorter than the inner; phyllary bases straw colored and firm (indurate) and phyllary tips herbaceous, green to red, long-acuminate, spreading to reflexed; phyllary outer surface often covered with gland-tipped hairs; rays 12-60 per flower head, the laminae (ray petals) 10-25 mm long, violet to purple; disc florets yellow. Fruits: Achenes 2-3 mm long, sparsely villous with fine, slightly appressed hairs; topped with a pappus of bristles. Ecology: Found on rocky slopes, in canyons, and along roadsides from 3,000-11,500 ft (914-3505 m); flowers March-October SEINet Portal Network. 2020. http//:swbiodiversity.org/seinet/index.php. Accessed on November 02.