Desert or sawtooth wirelettuce

Perennials, 10–20(–25) cm (rhizomes stout). Stems erect or ascending, glabrous or weakly scabrous-puberulent. Leaves usually withered at flowering; basal blades narrowly lanceolate, markedly runcinate, 3–7 cm, margins pinnately lobed (faces glabrous or weakly scabrous-puberulent). cauline much reduced, bractlike . Heads borne singly on branch tips . Peduncles 10–50 mm (usually minutely bracteolate). Calyculi of appressed bractlets (unequal, lengths to ¹/2 phyllaries). Involucres 9–12(–13) mm (phyllaries 5–6, glabrous). Florets 5–6. Cypselae tan, 3–5 mm, faces smooth to slightly bumpy, grooved; pappi of 15–25, white bristles (persistent), wholly plumose. 2n = 16.

Flowering June–Sep. Open sandy places, eroded siltstones, clay flats, alkali soils; 600–1800 m; Alta., Sask.; Colo., Mont., Nebr., N.Dak., Utah, Wyo.

Stephanomeria runcinata grows in the upper Great Plains and adjacent intermontane valleys.