Erigerons have yellow disk flowers and numerous, narrow ray flowers that are white, pink, or purple (but not yellow).

     Linnaeus named this genus in 1753.  The genus name is from the Greek "eri" ("early") + "geron" ("old man", as in "geriatrics"), perhaps referring to characteristics of some now unknown plant or perhaps to the early flowering of many species and to the bristly pappus of the developing seed, or to the puffy, grizzled appearance of the mature seed head.

Semi-desert.  Shrublands.  Spring.
Blackrock Canyon, Navajo Reservation, Arizona, May 12, 2007.

This silvery ("argentatus") gray-green Erigeron inhabits dry, open lands.  It is found in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona in just the counties bordering the Four Corners, but it is found in most counties of Utah.  It was only found fairly recently on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation in Colorado by Leslie Stewart, who has assisted so often with plant identification on this web site.

Flowers range from the very pale lavender shown here to much brighter blue-lavender.  Several inch long basal leaves are tightly clustered.  Stem leaves are fewer and shorter.

The plant was named and described in 1873 by Asa Gray from a specimen that his student, botanical associate, and successor, Sereno Watson, found in Nevada.

Semi-desert.  Shrublands.  Spring.
Blackrock Canyon, Navajo Reservation, Arizona, May 12, 2007.

The phyllaries are sharply pointed and in three rows.

Semi-desert.  Shrublands.  Spring.
Blackrock Canyon, Navajo Reservation, Arizona, May 12, 2007.

Montane to alpine.  Meadows, openings.  Summer.
Cinnamon Pass, August 1, 2007.

This lovely Daisy is, in the words of Intermountain Flora, "a common and highly variable ... species" but quite distinct from other Erigerons, especially because of its deeply divided basal leaves.  E. compositus is primarily apomictic, i.e., it reproduces not by pollination of ovules but by parthenogenesis (Greek for "virgin birth").  Ovules develop into new life without being fertilized.  This accounts for the uniformity of characteristics in local populations.  Distant populations do differ, however, especially in pubescence and ray length.  Rayless forms are common according to Weber.  The plants grow from two to ten inches tall; the plant at left is six inches tall.  E. compositus enjoys rocky openings and can be found through most higher elevations, but in the Four Corners area (only in Colorado and Utah) it is chiefly found from high montane to alpine.  As is true for almost all of the blue Erigerons, the color of E. compositus varies from white to blue to pink. 

Frederick Pursh named this species in 1814 from a specimen collected by Meriwether Lewis in 1806 near Lewiston, Idaho.

Montane to alpine.  Meadows, openings.  Summer.
Cinnamon Pass, August 1, 2007.

Montane to alpine.  Meadows, openings.  Summer.
Cinnamon Pass, August 1, 2007.

Foothills, montane.  Meadows, disturbed areas.  Spring, summer.
Prater Ridge Trail, Mesa Verde National Park, August 13, 2005.

Erigeron divergens is a many branched, densely hairy plant with rather short upper stem leaves which are most often vertical, almost hugging the stem.  The numerous ray flowers of Erigeron divergens are very light purple, often, as in this case, almost white.  The plant is variable in appearance as this and the additional photos indicate: The plant in the left photo is eight inches tall but it can grow to over a foot tall.  Leaves vary in width and the intensity of their green coloring, which often is drab.  Flowers are typically about an inch across but far more numerous on some plants than on others.  There were about a dozen plants near each other in the area of the left photo; there can be many dozens near each other.  The plants in the left photo grow in good soils with good moisture; but the plant can grow in gravels and sand and do well with much less moisture.

Thomas Nuttall collected the first specimen of this plant for science in the Rockies in the 1830s and Torrey and Gray named it in 1841.

Click for more Erigeron divergens photographs.