This widespread rounded shrub with compact branching reaches 3–8-feet tall and wide. By late summer it decorates roadsides with a solid mass of bright-yellow flower clusters. This complex species has 9 varieties, some with gray leaves and others with green. Note the white-woolly-hairy stems (use lens), narrow leaves, flower heads with 5 disk flowers and no rays, and phyllaries (at base or flower head) yellow and unequal in length.

FLOWERS: Late summer, fall. Flat-topped clusters of yellow flower heads with no ray florets and 5 tubular disk flowers, each 1/2-inch long (12 mm), with a long protruding stigma; phyllaries below the head yellow with tapering tips, stacked in 3–5 graduated rows.

LEAVES: Alternate, crowded on stem. Blade narrow, to 2 3/4-inches long (10–70 mm) by 3/8-inch wide (10 mm), tip pointed; surfaces gray to green, hairy or not, often gland-dotted.

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly, volcanic, gypsum, limestone soils, roadsides; grasslands, sagebrush scrub, pinyon-juniper.

ELEVATION: 3,500-9,500 feet.

RANGE: Rocky Mountain states and westward.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Four other species of Ericameria in NM, 3 widespread. Parry’s Rabbitbrush, E. parryi, in the nw fourth of NM, has hairy stems, heads with 5–20 disk florets, and phyllaries nearly equal in length. Turpentine Bush, E. laricifolia, in the sw fourth of NM, has stems without hairs, bright-green, aromatic leaves, and heads with 3–18 slender ray flowers.

NM COUNTIES: Statewide in low- to mid-altitude, dry habitats.