Slender-bracted silverpuffs

Scorzonella leptosepala Nuttall, Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc., n. s. 7: 426. 1841; Microseris leptosepala (Nuttall) A. Gray

Stems usually branched. Leaves linear to narrowly lanceolate, entire or pinnately lobed. Outer phyllaries rarely purple-spotted. linear to lanceolate or deltate, smallest 0.5–2.5 mm wide, apices (erect) acute to acuminate, abaxial faces often scurfy-puberulent and black-villous. Pappi of 5–10, white, glabrous, aristate scales 0.5–2.5 mm, aristae usually barbellulate, rarely barbellate. 2n = 18.

Flowering May–Aug. Clay, loam, and gravelly, sometimes serpentine-derived soils, open sites, meadows, hillsides, pine, oak and mixed evergreen woods; 30–2000 m; Calif., Oreg., Wash.

Subspecies leptosepala is known from the Klamath Mountains of California and Oregon and rare northward. It also occurs, intergrading with subsp. laciniata, in the California North Coast Range and east of the Cascade Range in central Oregon and northeastern California. It intergrades with subsp. siskiyouensis in the valleys of the Illinois and Smith rivers, southwestern Oregon and adjacent California (K. L. Chambers 2004b).