Prairie baccharis or false willow

Linosyris texana Torrey & A. Gray, Fl. N. Amer. 2: 232. 1842

Perennials or subshrubs, 25–60 cm (rhizomatous, bases woody). Stems simple, erect or procum-bent, rigid (woody proximally, herbaceous and leafy distally (dying back annually), striate-angled, glabrous, non-resinous. Leaves present at flowering; sessile; blades (1-nerved) linear to narrowly lanceolate, 10–40 × 1–4 mm, bases narrowed, margins minutely undulate, apices acute , faces glabrous, gland-dotted (distal leaves reduced, scalelike). Heads (on short peduncles) in loose corymbiform arrays. Involucres campanulate; staminate 4–7 mm, pistillate 7–9 mm. Phyllaries lanceolate, 1–7 mm, margins scarious, erose-ciliate, medians green (midribs dark, keeled, dilated), apices acute to acuminate (erose -ciliate, abaxial faces glabrous, minutely papillose-gland-dotted). Staminate florets 15–20; corollas 4–5 mm. Pistillate florets 20–30; corollas 3.5–4 mm. Cypselae 3–5 mm, prominently 6–8-nerved, glabrous; pappi 11–14 mm.

Flowering Aug–Nov. Dry prairies, hillsides, mesas, brushy flats; 100–200 m; N.Mex., Okla., Tex.; Mexico (Coahuila, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas).

Baccharis texana is recognized by its low, subshrub habit, simple, more or less herbaceous and leafy stems arising from woody bases, narrow leaves with minutely undulate margins, large pedunculate heads, and erose-ciliate phyllaries with dilated midribs.