Madia glomerata
Mountain tarweed
Family: Asteraceae · Type: annual · Native
Mountain tarweed is a California native annual found in the Klamath Ranges, northern California High Sierra, Sierra Nevada, San Bernardino Mountains, and Great Basin in meadows and open disturbed sites with sandy or gravelly soils at elevations of 1,050 to 2,700 meters. Flowering from June to September, this plant produces green-yellow to purple flowers in tightly grouped heads that are occasionally arranged in flat-topped clusters. Growing 0.5 to 12 decimeters tall with soft-hairy and glandular stems that have lateral branches sometimes exceeding the main stem, it displays distinctive yellow or black glandular hairs. Its leaves are linear to lance-linear, measuring 2 to 10 centimeters long and 2 to 7 millimeters wide, with a delicate, sparse structure. The fruit is notable for its black, dull, compressed seeds that lack a beak, with ray and disk fruits appearing similar.
Habitat: Meadows, open or disturbed sites, often sandy or gravelly soils
Bloom period: Jun-Sep
Elevation: (0)1050-2700 m
Bioregions: KR, CaRH, n&c SNH, SnBr, GB (exc W&I) introduced NCo, sw SnFrB
Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.