Starved fleabane

Perennials, 5–25 cm; taprooted, woody [usually not collected]. Stems decumbent-ascending to ascending-erect (caudexlike at bases), white-villous (hairs stiff), minutely glandular. Leaves cauline; blades narrowly obovate, 7–16 × 1–3.5 mm, margins entire, faces white-villous (hairs stiff), minutely glandular. Heads (discoid) 1 or 2–4 in loosely corymbiform arrays. Involucres (3.5–)4–5 × 7–12 mm. Phyllaries in 3–5 series, glabrous, densely minutely glandular. Ray florets 0. Disc florets corollas 3.2–4.5 mm (throats slightly indurate, not inflated). Cypselae 2–2.5 mm, 2-nerved, faces sparsely strigose; pappi: outer of setae, inner of 18–25(–28) bristles. 2n = 18.

Flowering Jul–Oct. Taluses, rock crevices, montane coniferous forests; of conservation concern; 1800–2600 m; Calif.

Erigeron miser differs from E. petrophilus primarily by its smaller heads; there also are overlapping differences in leaf size, disc corolla length, shape of the style appendages, and numbers of pappus bristles.