Pentachaeta aurea

Golden chaetopappa

Family: Asteraceae · Type: annual · Native

Golden chaetopappa is a California native annual found in dry, open habitats at low to moderate elevations. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces yellow to brown-orange ray flowers 3 to 12 millimeters long, with yellow disk flowers clustered in heads up to 22 per plant. Growing with delicate stems 5 to 36 centimeters tall that are short-hairy, it has slender leaves less than 5.5 centimeters long and about 3 millimeters wide. Its leaves are glabrous to sparsely hairy on the upper surface, with varying hairiness on the lower surface. The fruit is characterized by 5 to 8 pappus bristles that are expanded at the base.

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