The toothed, triangular leaves and large, rayless, drooping, white/cream/yellow flowers of Bricklebush are distinctive.   Bricklebush grows from under a foot tall to over three feet tall and several feet wide with flowers up to two inches long.  Leaves are  1.5 to 10 cm long and .6 6o 6.5 cm wide, considerably larger than those of B. microphylla pictured below.  Although Brickellia grandiflora is fairly common, it is frequently overlooked  --  even after you get to know it.  I often find it, not by seeing the plant first, but by becoming aware that I am in its rocky habitat and then looking for it.  Sure enough, I am standing right next to a Brickellia grandiflora!

Dr. John Brickell was an early American physician and naturalist. (More biographical information.)

Semi-desert. Sandy, rocky areas, woodlands. Summer.
Lower Butler Wash, Utah, October 18, 2009.

Brickellia microphylla grows to more than two feet tall (as pictured here) with woody stems and masses of small flowers heads, each containing 8-18 disk flowers in a tight, vertical cluster.  Leaves are oval-to-round-to-heart-shaped and are considerably smaller than those of B. grandiflora, ranging from 3-18 mm long and 1-9 mm wide.  Leaves pictured here are no more than 9 mm long and 5 mm wide.

Thomas Nuttall discovered this plant for science in the mid-1830s and named it Bulbostylis microphylla. Asa Gray renamed the species Brickellia microphylla in 1852 and then renamed it B. microphylla variety scabra in 1876.  Weber renamed it as a subspecies instead of a variety in 1983, but the ultimate authority for this web site, John Kartesz, accepts Asa Gray's designation of "variety".

Semi-desert. Sandy, rocky areas, woodlands. Summer.
Lower Butler Wash, Utah, October 18, 2009.

The three photographs of B. microphylla shown on this page were taken in the early fall when flowers were long gone and the plants were yellowing and drying. This year's seed heads are brown; last year's seeds have dropped off and only the white star-burst of the phyllaries surrounding the receptacle remain.

Semi-desert. Sandy, rocky areas, woodlands. Summer.
Lower Butler Wash, Utah, October 18, 2009.

Leaves are small, numerous, heart-shaped, often with a few small teeth, and rough ("scabrous"), the roughness resulting from stiff, pustulate hairs and (sometimes) greatly raised venation.

Range map © John Kartesz,
Floristic Synthesis of North America

State Color Key

Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state

County Color Key

Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Native species, but adventive in state
Eradicated
Questionable presence

Range map for Brickellia grandiflorum

Range map for Brickellia microphylla