WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

This diminutive 2–7-inch tall and wide plant forms a compact clump covered with small white flowers with yellow centers. The petals fade to pink and tips curl under by evening. Highly variable and widely adaptable to soils, elevation, and drought, it’s common statewide. Note the narrow, overlapping leaves ascending at a slight angle or flat against the stem.

FLOWERS: April-September. Flower head has 12–24 snow-white rays, 1/8–3/8-inch long (4–8 mm), and a yellow disk with white pappus hairs.

LEAVES: Alternate. Even-sized, overlapping or at a slight angle up the stem, narrow, spiny, linear to lance-shaped, 1/4–1/2-inch (5–11 mm) long; surfaces and margins glandular-hairy.

HABITAT: Sandy, silty, gravelly soils, roadsides, disturbed areas; prairies, desert grasslands and scrub, pinion-juniper, ponderosa, spruce forests.

ELEVATION: 3,000–9,000 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CA, CO, KS, NE, NV, NM, OK, TX, UT, WY.

SIMILAR SPECIES: The narrow, overlapping leaves and white ray flowers with tips that curl under distinguish this plant.

NM COUNTIES: Statewide in low- to mid-elevation, arid habitats.