About Chaenactis alpigena Sharsm.
Chaenactis alpigena is a species of flowering plant in the daisy family, commonly known as the southern Sierra pincushion. It is native to the High Sierra Nevada and the White Mountains of California; its range in the White Mountains extends just into Nevada. It is also cultivated in rock gardens. It grows in sandy and gravelly soil across a variety of alpine and subalpine mountain habitats. This is a very small plant, growing no more than a few centimeters tall. It produces numerous stems that can range from erect to prostrate, and forms mats or clumps. The plant is generally gray to yellowish in color and densely covered in woolly hairs, though green, nearly hairless specimens have been observed. Its leaves grow in a basal rosette; each leaf is thick but not fleshy, scoop-shaped, and has a few lobes along its edges. Leaf morphology varies widely across the species, particularly between individuals from northern versus southern populations. Each stem generally bears just one flower head. The flower head measures between roughly 1 and 2 centimeters long, is somewhat cylindrical, and hairy but not glandular. It is lined with long, flat, blunt-pointed phyllaries. The head holds many white to pink-tinted flowers, which have large, protruding, darker-colored anthers. The fruit produced is an achene that measures over a centimeter long when its pappus is included.
