With up to 25 densely branching stems, this 2-foot tall and wide, robust plant thrives in abused rangeland and waste places. The rounded mounds with dark-green, thread-like leaves, and numerous yellow flower heads with rays tipped with 3 rounded lobes help distinguish this flower.

FLOWER: April–August. One plant can have 15 to more than 100 showy, yellow flower heads on erect, leafless stems (peduncles) 3/4–4 3/4 inches long (2–12 cm); each head has 8–13 petal-like ray flowers 3/8–1/2-inch long, widely spaced, and tipped with 3 lobes; disk flowers are yellowish-orange. The base of the flower head (calyx) has two unequal rows of point-tipped bracts or phyllaries; the lower third of the  bases of the outer phyllaries are united.

LEAVES: Basal leaves wilt by flowering. Alternate stem leaves, 3/4–4-inches long, gland-dotted, have 3-15 thread-like segments along the midrib.

HABITAT: Sandy, silty, gravelly soils in low, drainage areas, disturbed areas, washes; shortgrass prairies, desert grasslands, desert scrub.

ELEVATION: 3,800–6,500 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CA, CO, KA, NM, OK, TX.

SIMILAR SPECIES: The erect plant, Pingue Rubberweed, H. richardsonii, grows at higher elevations in pinyon-juniper, ponderosa, and spruce-fir woodlands. Four-nerve Bitterweed, Tetraneuris scaposa, has  a dense basal cluster of linear leaves and leafless flower stems to 16-inches tall.

NOTES: Cattle avoid the aromatic, bitter tasting, toxic plant, but sheep can develop a taste for it and are often poisoned.

NM COUNTIES: Nearly statewide, except northern NM high country, in low-elevation, dry habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Chaves, Cibola, Curry, De Baca, Dona Ana, Grant, Guadalupe, Harding, Hidalgo, Lea, Lincoln, Luna, McKinley, Mora, Otero, Quay, Roosevelt, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Sierra, Socorro, Torrance, Union, Valencia.