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Hymenopappus filifolius Asteraceae (Sunflower Family) Semi-desert, foothills. Woodlands, openings.
Spring. Very fine thread-like mounds of leaves are evident for weeks before tall slender stalks arise and are then topped by several small yellow flowers. Hymenopappus filifolius, like so many members of the Asteraceae Family composed only of disk flowers, is easily overlooked. "Hymenopappus" refers to the membranous pappus (small scales, bristles, or hairs at the apex of the seed) and "filifolius" is from the Latin "fili", "thread" and "folius", "leaf". The botanist David Douglas (of Douglas Fir fame) first collected this plant along the Columbia River "near Wallawallah" in the late 1820s and it was described and named by William Jackson Hooker in his Flora Boreali-Americana in 1833. |
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Hymenopappus filifolius Asteraceae (Sunflower Family) Semi-desert, foothills. Woodlands, openings.
Spring. The first photograph shows basal leaves of a very young plant; the second shows a plant many years old. The gray stems are last year's flower stems. Basal leaves can be confused with those of Chaenactis douglasii. |
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Hymenopappus filifolius Asteraceae (Sunflower Family) Semi-desert, foothills. Woodlands, openings.
Spring. Flowers range from golden yellow to lemon yellow. |
