About Psathyrotes ramosissima (Torr.) A.Gray
Psathyrotes ramosissima is a low, neatly mounded plant with spreading stems that range from hairless to densely woolly in texture. It grows up to 5 inches (12.5 centimetres) tall and gives off a turpentine odour. Its leaves grow on long petioles, with roundish, veined leaf blades reaching up to 3⁄4 inch (2 cm) long. Leaf blades have toothed edges and a velvety surface covered in woolly fibres and shiny hairs, and their colour ranges from brownish to grayish or pale green. The species produces knobby inflorescences 1⁄4 inch (6 millimetres) wide, lined with woolly gray-green phyllaries that have dull, outward-curving points. Each inflorescence holds several hairy yellow disc florets. The fruit is an achene tipped with a large pappus made up of over 100 long, fine bristles. Psathyrotes ramosissima is native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, where it grows in desert scrub habitat.
