Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Simple to very branched, glabrous plant 15-50 cm tall with weak, zigzag, fistulous, purplish stems, frequently growing upward through shrubs.

Leaves: To 15 cm long, 1-3 cm wide, deeply and often rucinately pinnatifid, lobes to 2 cm long, acute; blades sessile and auriculate-clasping or short-petioled.

Flowers: Heads solitary and scattered at tips of branchlets, involucres about 2 cm long, main bracts lance-linear, with purplish midribs; ligules white within, rose-tinged without, outer ones 15-20 mm long.

Fruits: Cypselae 12-15 mm long, body tapering only slightly into beak, nearly twice as long as latter, minutely and closely papillate or puberulent, pale to dark gray; pappus bristles 10-15 mm long, silvery white, about three times as wide as thick at base.

Ecology: Found on arid plains, mesas, and gentle slopes 200-3,500 ft (61-1067 m); flowers March-May.

Distribution: CA, AZ, s UT, s NV, s NM, w TX; south to n MEX

Notes: One of the more conspicuous flowers in the spring.

Ethnobotany: Unknown 

Etymology: Rafinesquia is named for Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (1783-1840) a 19th century botanist, while neomexicana is for New Mexico.

Synonyms: None

Editor: SBuckley, 2010