Wyethia ovata

Southern mule's ears

Family: Asteraceae · Type: perennial · Native

Southern mule's ears is a California native perennial found in southern Sierra Nevada and southwestern California in grasslands, open woodlands, and forests at elevations of 300 to 2,750 meters. Flowering from May to September, this plant produces yellow sunflower-like flowers with rays 8 to 18 millimeters long in flat-topped clusters. Growing 10 to 50 centimeters tall with often branched, decumbent stems that are slightly sticky and glandular, it forms dense clumps in open landscapes. Its leaves are soft and silky-hairy, 7 to 20 centimeters long, ranging from elliptic to broadly ovate with bases that can be acute, obtuse, truncate, or heart-shaped. The flower heads have distinctive involucres 1.5 to 2 centimeters wide with outer phyllaries 30 to 50 millimeters long that are leaf-like and erect.

Habitat: Grassland, open woodland and forest

Bloom period: May-Sep

Elevation: 300-2750 m

Bioregions: s SN, SW

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