Clumps of branching stems to 30 inches tall are tipped with flat-topped arrays of flower heads. The small, rounded flower heads have tightly packed yellow disk florets (no ray flowers) surrounded by rows of  pearly-white bracts. Note that gland-tipped hairs cover the stem and upper leaf surface, while loose, woolly hairs give the leaf bottoms a whitish color. Also called Macoun’s rabbit tobacco.

FLOWER: July–October. Dense, flat-topped, woolly-hairy clusters on branch ends have small flower heads with 4–5 rows of shiny, white to creamy, overlapping bracts; disk flowers are evenly yellow and tightly packed.

LEAVES: Alternate. Blades linear to lance-shaped, 1–4 inches long (3–10 cm) by 1/4–1/2 inch wide (3–13 mm); bicolored with the top surface green, covered with tiny gland-tipped hairs, bottom side whitish, lightly covered with woolly hairs; edges entire, often wavy; tiny wings grow down the stem from the leaf base.

HABITAT: Sandy, rocky, loamy soils; open forests, rocky slopes, meadows, roadsides, disturbed areas; pine-oak, pine-Douglas fir, spruce-fir-aspen forests.

ELEVATION: 5,200–10,400 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, NM, OR, SD, UT, WY; eastern and Great Lakes states.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Cotton batting plant, P. stramineum, widespread at lower elevations, has loose, woolly hairs covering the stems and both leaf surfaces evenly and no gland-tipped hairs, and the leaves don’t have tiny wing-like extensions growing down the stem from the leaf base. Wright’s cudweed, P. canescens, in the western half of NM, has sessile leaves (without stalks or wings down stem), and matted, woolly hairs that densely cover both the leaf surfaces and stems.

NM COUNTIES: Widespread in NM foothills and mountains in mid- to high-elevation habitats: Catron, Chaves, Cibola, Colfax, Dona Ana, Grant, Hidalgo, Lincoln, Los Alamos, McKinley, Mora, Otero, Rio Arriba, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Socorro, Taos, Torrance, Valencia.