Scott Valley sulphur flower

Herbs, spreading mats, 1-3 × 3-10 dm. Aerial flowering stems erect, 1-2 dm, tomentose, without one or more leaflike bracts ca. midlength. Leaves in rather loose rosettes; blade broadly elliptic, (1-)1.5-4 × (0.5-)0.8-1.8(-2) cm, densely white-tomentose to lanate abaxially, white-tomentose and greenish, rarely some floccose or even glabrous and green adaxially, margins plane. Inflorescences compound-umbellate, 3-10(-12) cm; branches tomentose, without a whorl of bracts ca. midlength; involucral tubes (3-)3.5-5 mm, lobes (3-)4-6 mm. Flowers 4-7 mm; perianth bright yellow.

Flowering Jul-Sep. Sandy to gravelly flats, oak and conifer woodlands; 800-900 m; Calif.

Variety lautum is restricted to the Scott Valley area of Siskiyou County. It is by far one of the most attractive expressions of the species that could be introduced into the garden.