Chaenactis santolinoides

Chaenactis santolinoides
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Asterids
Order: Asterales
Family: Asteraceae
Tribe: Heliantheae
Genus: Chaenactis
Species: C. santolinoides
Binomial name
Chaenactis santolinoides
Greene

Chaenactis santolinoides is a species of flowering plant in the daisy family known by the common name Santolina pincushion.

Description

Chaenactis santolinoides is a clumpy or mat-forming perennial herb growing up to about 25 centimeters in maximum height. The stems are erect and coated in white woolly hairs which thin with age. The leaves are several centimeters long and arranged in a crowded basal rosette. Each leaf is made up of many tiny lobes which are reduced so as to form a solid mass, making the leaf somewhat cylindrical.

The inflorescence produces one to three flower heads extended on a tall, erect peduncle. The flower head is lined with hairy, glandular phyllaries and contains many white or pink flowers with protruding anthers. The fruit is an achene with a pappus.

Distribution

It is endemic to California, where it is found in the Transverse Ranges and southern Sierra Nevada, in open, exposed high mountain habitat such as scree and rocky slopes.

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