Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses - Stemless tetraneuris

STEMLESS TETRANEURIS

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Tetraneuris acaulis Pursh

[=Hymenoxys acaulis (Pursh ) K. F. Parker]

Scott County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 4-12 inches

Family: Asteraceae - Sunflower Family

Flowering Period: May, June, July, August

Also Called:

Stemless goldflower, stemless hymenoxys.

Stems:

Stemless; flowering stalk leafless, silky.

Leaves:

All basal, spatulate, .6 to 3.2 inches long, .1 to .33 inches wide, densely silky-hairy, sparsely to moderately gland-dotted; margins entire.

Inflorescences:

Heads, solitary, terminal on flowering stalks; our populations only rarely with ray florets.

Flowers:

Involucre 1/5 to 1/3 inch tall, 1/2 to 3/4 inch across, receptacle hemispheric or conical; involucral bracts erect, thin, separate, silky, 1/6 to 1/4 inch long; outer bracts 6-10; ray florets (when present) 8-14, 1/5 to 1/3 inch long, yellow, turned downward at maturity; disk florets many, fertile, yellow.

Fruits:

Achene, top-shaped, weakly angled, coarsely hairy, tipped with 5-7 translucent scales to 1/8 inch long; enclosing small seed.

Habitat:

Dry, rocky hillsides, limestone bluffs, roadsides; calcareous soils.

Distribution:

West 1/2 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Uses:

Native Americans in the Southwest used a related species to make a stimulant drink or applied a poultice of the plant to hip and back aches.

Comments:

New Latin from Greek akaulos, "without a stem".