Sierra lessingia

Plants 5–90 cm. Stems erect, tan, glabrous or villous to tomentose. Leaves: basal withering by flowering; cauline margins entire, faces gland-dotted (in pits, sometimes obscured by tomentum), abaxial glabrous or villous to tomentose. Heads borne singly or in corymbiform arrays, usually at ends of branchlets. Involucres obconic, 5–10 mm. Phyllaries green or purple-tipped, faces persistently tomentose, gland-dotted or not; inner scarious. Disc florets 6–25; corollas lavender (color more intense in tubes); style-branch appendages truncate-penicillate or lanceolate, 0.3–0.6 mm. Pappi tan, longer than cypselae. 2n = 10.

Flowering Jul–Oct. Open areas, roadsides, woodlands, conifer forests, sometimes granitic soils; 200–1800 m; Calif.

Lessingia leptoclada grows in the Sierra Nevada.