San Diego alpinegold

Biennials or perennials, 40–120 cm. Stems (1–)3–10, leafy, lanate to woolly. Leaves basal and cauline; blades gray to grayish green, broadly oblanceolate to spatulate, 6–10 cm, margins undulate to weakly lobed, faces densely lanate; distal cauline leaves lanceolate to narrowly obovate, gradually reduced. Heads 2–5. Involucres broadly conic to hemispheric, 15–26 mm diam. Phyllaries 9–14 mm, outer lanceolate, apices attenuate. Ray florets 22–40; corolla tubes glabrous, laminae yellow, 9–12 mm. Disc corollas yellow. Cypselae 4–6 mm; pappus scales subequal, 1–2 mm. 2n = 38.

Flowering late spring–summer. Often common after fires, open sites in chaparral and woodlands, mostly rocky, metamorphic soils; of conservation concern; 1000–2000 m; Calif.

Hulsea californica grows in the eastern Peninsular Ranges, San Diego County.