Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Herbaceous winter annuals, to 11 cm tall, stems decumbent to erect, herbage loosely woolly with tufts of long, tangeled hairs (floccose).

Leaves: Mostly alternate or proximal opposite, proximal wedge-shaped, distal spatualte to linear, blade tips 3-lobed to entire, margins sometimes rolled under.

Flowers: Small and bright yellow, radiate in solitary, terminal heads, ray flowers 3-lobed or 3-toothed at tips, yellow or white above and pink-purple with red veins beneath, 1 per phyllary, disk flowers yellow, 10-20 or more, corollas narrowly funnel-shaped with glabrous surfaces, involucres cylindric, phyllaries oblanceolate, 5-8 in a single series with acute tips, spreading in fruit, alternate phyllaries with papery margins, receptacles epaleate and convex with knobby or smooth surfaces, anthers and style tips narrowly triangular, heads borne at branch tips on green peduncles 3-25 mm long.

Fruits: Cypsleae (achenes) narrowly obconic, 2-3.5 mm long, with strigose surfaces. Pappus bristles absent or of many minutely barbed bristles, these slightly widened and fused at base, to 2 mm long.

Ecology: Found in open, sandy to gravelly areas on mesas or rocky slopes, in scrub or woodland communities, from 2,000-8,500 ft (610-2591 m); flowering March-June.

Distribution: Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah.

Notes: The rays of the pretty yellow flowers of this species have 3 lobes or teeth at the tips, and become papery with age. Kearney and Peebles report this species occurring in Mohave, Pima (Ajo Mountains), and Yuma counties.

Ethnobotany: Unknown.

Synonyms: None

Editor: LCrumbacher2012

Etymology: Syntrichopappus comes from the the Greek syn, "together," thrix, "hair," and pappos, "pappus," from the fused pappus, while fremontii is named for John Charles Fremont (1813-1890), "the Pathfinder," Army officer and presidential candidate who collected plants on four hazardous journeys exploring the western United States.