Calycoseris parryi A. Gray
Family: Asteraceae
Yellow Tackstem,  more...
Calycoseris parryi image

Stems, distal branches, and phyllaries gland-dotted, glands red- or purple-tipped. Involucres 13-17 mm. Ligules yellow, 1.5-2.5 cm. Cypselae tan or straw-colored, deeply grooved between ribs, faces not rugulose. 2n = 14.

Flowering Apr-Jun. Sandy, gravelly soils, sand dunes, slopes, washes, limestone ridges in Lower Sonoran zone, Mohave and Colorado deserts; 200-1800 m; Ariz., Calif., Nev., Utah; Mexico (Baja California).

FNA 2006, Kearney and Peebles 1969

Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Winter annual herb, 5-30 cm tall, from a taproot; stems 1-3, spreading-ascending, branched from the base, with milky sap; herbage conspicuously dotted with red or purple stipitate glands.

Leaves: In basal rosettes and alternate along the stems; all leaves sessile; blades to 10 cm long, pinnately divided into narrowly linear or filiform lobes, these 2 mm wide or less; upper leaves reduced to linear bracts.

Flowers: Heads ligulate ligules yellow, involucres 2-4 cm in diameter, minutely bristly and otherwise naked, subtended by small bracts, phyllaries in 2-series, the outer short and wide, the inner linear, numerous, with scarious margins.

Fruits: Achenes fusiform, 5-6 ribbed with deep grooves between the ribs, tapering into a short beak, this expanded at the apex into a shallow, denticulate cup. Pappus of numerous hispidulous, white bristles, deciduous in a ring.

Ecology: Found on sandy to gravelly, limestone soils, in washes, on slopes and sand dunes, 700-6,000 ft (213-1829 m); flowering March-May.

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

Notes: Differentiate from C. wrightii by the yellow flowers and the achenes with deep grooves between its ribs.

Ethnobotany: Unknown.

Etymology: Calycoseris is from Greek kalux, cup and seris, a chicory-like genus, while parryi is named for Dr. Charles Christopher Parry (1823-1890) who collected with the Mexican Boundary Survey among other notable surveys.

Synonyms: None

Editor: LCrumbacher 2011, FSCoburn 2015