Bailey’s rabbitbrush

Chrysothamnus baileyi Wooton & Standley, Contr. U.S. Natl. Herb. 16: 181. 1913; C. pulchellus (A. Gray) Greene subsp. baileyi (Wooton & Standley) H. M. Hall & Clements

Shrubs, 25–70 cm. Stems single, greenish when young, becoming whitish to gray, fastigiately branched distal to middle (angled from leaf bases), glabrous or puberulent. Leaves ascending to appressed; blades linear or linear-oblong, 4–35 × 0.5–3 mm, flat or adaxially concave, margins ciliolate, midveins evident, often purplish, apices acute to acuminate, faces glabrous. Heads usually in cymiform to corymbiform arrays 0.5–7 cm wide, sometimes borne singly. Involucres obconic to cylindric, 10–15 × 4–6 mm. Phyllaries 20–25 in 4–5 series, in 5 vertical ranks, mostly tan, shiny, with green subapical patch, midnerves mostly evident on distal ¹ / 2 , keeled, ovate to oblong or lanceolate, 1–10 × 0.8–2.3 mm, unequal, mostly chartaceous, margins entire, narrowly scarious, apices acute to attenuate or acuminate, faces glabrous. Receptacles with 0–1 central awn ca. 0.5 mm. Ray florets 0. Disc florets 5; corollas 9–14 mm, glabrous, lobes 1–1.7 mm; style branches exserted, 4.1–4.6 mm, appendages narrowly triangular, 2–2.8 mm. Cypselae brownish, turbinate, 5–7 mm, sharply 4-angled, 5–8 ribbed, faces sparsely or rarely densely hairy; pappi yellowish tan, 9–12 mm. 2n = 18 [as Chrysothamnus pulchellus].

Flowering late summer–fall. Open high plains, especially in sandy sites; 1300–2400 m; Ariz., Colo., Kans., N.Mex., Okla., Tex., Utah; Mexico (Chihuahua, Coahuila).

Lorandersonia baileyi is often treated as a subspecies of L. pulchella. Phylogenetic analyses (R. P. Roberts and L. E. Urbatsch 2004) indicate that the two are not sister taxa.