Chaenactis glabriuscula var. lanosa

Sand buttons, Sand Buttons

Family: Asteraceae · Type: annual · Native

Sand buttons is a California native annual found in central western California (excluding San Francisco Bay) and the northwestern edge of the Sonoran Desert in open loose sand and coastal dunes at elevations of 10 to 700 meters. Flowering from March to July, this plant produces white flowers in scaped heads 5 to 6.5 millimeters long. Growing 8 to 15 centimeters tall with erect to decumbent stems, it has 1 to 12 stems with white tomentose to woolly proximal hairs. Its leaves are predominantly basal, with cylindric or slightly flat blades 2 to 10 centimeters long, featuring 1 to 2 pairs of lobes with flat or cylindric tips. The fruit is 4 to 6 millimeters long with a pappus of four scales.

Habitat: Open loose sand, gravel, often coastal dunes

Bloom period: Mar-Jul

Elevation: 10-700(2100) m

Bioregions: Typical forms generally CW (exc SnFrB) intermediates generally n SW (exc s ChI), nw edge DSon.

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.