Bailey's rabbitbrush

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Bailey's rabbitbrush

Bailey's rabbitbrush

Morphology

Trunk

Stems single, erect to ascending, green when young, whitish or grayish when older, glabrous or minutely pubescent; branches above the middle sloping upward, somewhat parallel to the stem.

Leaves

Alternate, cauline, ascending to appressed, often crowded; blades linear to linear-oblong, .16 to 1.4 inch long, .02 to .12 inch wide, margins ciliolate, midvein prominent and often purplish, tip acute to acuminate, surfaces glabrous.

Flowers

Heads, discoid, congested in cyme-like or corymb-like arrays .2 to 2.8 inches wide, sometimes borne singly. Involucre obconic to cylindric, .4 to .6 inch tall, .16 to ,24 inch wide. Phyllaries 20-25 in 4-5 series, in vertical ranks, tan, shiny, ovate to oblong or lanceolate, .04 to .4 inch long, .03 to .09 inch wide, unequal, glabrous, margins entire, tip acute to attenuate or acuminate.Ray florets absent; disc florets 5; corollas yellow, .35 to .55 inch, lobes 5; style branches exserted.

Fruit

Achene, brown, turbinate, .2 to .28 inch, conspicuously 4-angled, 5-8 ribbed, surfaces sparsely hairy; pappus of yellowish-tan bristles, .35 to .5 inch long.

Ecology

Habitat

Sandsage prairies

Distribution

Hamilton, Kearny, and Morton Counties in southwest Kansas.

Additional Notes