Perennials (sometimes flowering first year, sometimes rhizomatous), (5-)15-35+ cm. Leaves basal and cauline, mostly re-stricted to proximal 1/3-1/2; petiolar bases 0-5+ cm; blades mostly oblanceolate to spatulate, 3-6(-12) cm × 3-18(-30) mm, margins mostly pinnatifid, distal sometimes toothed or entire (rarely all linear, entire), faces closely strigillose to shaggily villous. Peduncles (4-)8-25+ cm. Phyllaries 20-30, ovate- to lanceolate-attenuate, 7-12+ mm, hispidulous to villous (hairs often jointed). Receptacular setae usually 1-3 mm, rarely wanting. Ray florets 0 or 5-14; corollas usually uniformly yellow, sometimes proximally and/or abaxially reddish, 10-25+ mm. Disc florets (30-)60-100+; corollas usually proximally ochroleucous or yellow and distally purplish, rarely wholly yellow, tubes 0.8-1 mm, throats campanulate to plumply urceolate, 3-4.5 mm, lobes broadly deltate to deltate-ovate, 0.5-1 mm, jointed hairs 0.3+ mm. Cypselae obpyramidal, 1-3 mm, hairs 1-2 mm, inserted at bases and on angles and faces; pappi of 8-11 lanceolate, aristate scales 3-7 mm (scarious bases 1.5-4 × 0.5-1.5 mm). 2n = 34.
Flowering Mar-Oct, mostly May-Jul. Clays or sandy soils, often disturbed places, in grasslands, desert scrub-lands, or pinyon woodlands; 900-2000 m; Ariz., Colo., Nev., N.Mex., Okla., Tex., Utah; Mexico (Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Sonora).
Some plants, especially from Arizona, included here in Gaillardia pinnatifida, have mostly narrow, undivided leaf blades (mostly 3-8+ mm wide, villous to sparsely strigillose; var. linearis) and intergrade with similar plants called G. multiceps, which have sparsely and minutely hispidulous or glabrate leaf blades.
Plants from Utah with yellow disc corollas and densely gland-dotted leaves, included here in Gaillardia pinnatifida, have been recognized as G. flava.
Duration: Perennial
Nativity: Native
Lifeform: Subshrub
General: Perennial herbs to 35 cm tall, growing in dense tufts from a woody caudex, and sometimes from rhizomes; stems much-branched, leafy toward the base; herbage strigose-canescent to villous.
Leaves: Alternate, clustered near base of plant; blades oblanceolate to spatulate, the lower leaves toothed or pinnately lobed and upper leaves entire and narrower; surfaces strigose-canescent to villous.
Flowers: Flower heads showy, radiate, solitary on slender peduncles to 25 cm long; involucre (ring of bracts wrapped around flower head) hemispheric, 1-2 cm diameter, the bracts (phyllaries) 20-30 in 2-3 series, lanceolate-attenuate and villous with long white heairs; ray florets 0 or 5-14, the laminae (ray petals) yellow, often streaked with purple, deeply 3-lobed, 1-3 cm long; disc florets 60-100, the corollas yellowish with purple tips, densely glandular-hirsute, 0.5 cm high.
Fruits: Achenes cone-shaped,to 3 mm long, densely silky hirsute, topped with a pappus of 5-10 dry, membranaceous paleae, these tipped with slender awns.
Ecology: Often found on limestone soils on mesas, plains, and in open pine forest, from 3,500-7,000 ft (1067-2134 m); flowers April-October.
Distribution: CO and UT to TX, NM and AZ; south to MEX.
Notes: A distinctive, showy perennial herb with a large, roundish head of showy red-orange disc flowers surrounded by yellow rays, each with three lobes; the simple to pinnately lobed, gray-green leaves are mostly restricted to the lower portion of the plant and the seeds have a pappus of awn-tipped scales (palea).
Ethnobotany: The plant was rubbed on mothers- breasts to wean infants; an infusion of the plant was used as a diuretic, to treat heartburn and nausea, and ceremonially; a poultice of the leaves was applied to treat gout, and the seeds were eaten as food.
Etymology: Gaillardia is named for Gaillard de Charentonneau, an 18th century French patron of botany; pinnatifida means pinnately cut.
Synonyms: Gaillardia flava
Editor: LCrumbacher 2011, FSCoburn 2014, AHazelton 2016
Gaillardia flava Rydberg, N. Amer. Fl. 34(2): 139. 1915.
[Type: Utah, Emery Co., Lower Crossing, of the Price River, near Woodside, not "[of the Colorado River]" as with the protolog, M. E. Jones 6412, 2 Jul 1898, holotype US!, isotypes BRY!, POM!] Yellow-flower
Perennial herbs from a subrhizomatous woody caudex; stems 20–50 cm tall, foliose to the middle or above; leaves 2–7.5 (10) cm long, 4–25 mm wide, pinnately incised, minutely puberulent and glandular-punctate; heads solitary, on peduncles to 25 cm long; disk 17–32 mm wide, yellow; involucral bracts sparingly to moderately villous, green, caudate-attenuate; rays 8–12, yellow, 12–17 mm long, the lobes 3–5 mm long; setae of receptacle well developed, coarse and spinescent; disk corollas sparingly villous, the hairs with colorless cross-walls, the lobes acute; pappus scales oblong to oblanceolate, abruptly contracted to a barbellate appendage; achenes ca 1–1.5 mm long, yellowish pilose.
Stream terraces and valley bottoms, commonly in cottonwood, willow, and tamarix communities in Desolation and lower Price river canyons and near vicinity at 1280 to 1650 m in Emery and Grand cos.; a Navajo Basin endemic; 23 (vi).
Plants of this remarkably distinctive species are extremely resinous glandular, with a very bitter-flavored exudate – this discovered after constructing a sandwich following pressing of yellow-flower plants. Despite the assumption by Rydberg (see above) that the original material was taken at the Lower Crossing [of the Colorado River], the plants are known from only along the lower Price River (where Lower Crossing was adjacent to the coal cliffs east of Woodside where the Price River penetrates to the Green), and along the Canyon of the Green River north of Gunnison Butte, where it grows on rubble from the coal-bearing Cretaceous Mesa Verde Group of formations. Despite the distinctive nature of G. flava it is synonymized insensibly within G. pinnatifida in FNA 21: 423. 2006.
