Packera cardamine (Greene) W.A. Weber & A. Löve
Family: Asteraceae
Bitter-Cress Groundsel,  more...
[Senecio cardamine Greene]
Packera cardamine image

Perennials, 20-60+ cm; rhizomatous (rhizomes erect to ascending, stout). Stems 1, glabrous. Basal leaves petiolate; blades orbiculate-ovate, orbiculate, obovate, or subreniform, 30-80+ × 30-80+ mm, bases cordate to contracted, margins crenate, dentate, or wavy. Cauline leaves abruptly reduced (proximal petiolate or sessile and clasping, broadly lanceolate, irregularly incised or crenate; mid ones sessile, clasping, sometimes auriculate, oblong to hastate, irregularly dentate; distal bractlike, entire). Heads 3-8 in open, cymiform arrays. Peduncles conspicuously bracteate, glabrous. Calyculi conspicuous. Phyllaries 13, light green, 5-9+ mm, glabrous. Ray florets usually 8+, rarely 0; corolla laminae 8-11 mm. Disc florets 30-45+; corolla tubes 4-5 mm, limbs 6-7 mm. Cypselae 1.5-2 mm, glabrous; pappi 9-10 mm.

Flowering mid Jun-late Jul. Canyons, meadows, spruce forests; of conservation concern; 2400-3200 m; Ariz., N.Mex.

Packera cardamine is uncommon, rarely collected, and known only from the Mogollon Mountains of New Mexico and the White Mountains of Arizona.