Leaves entire, <0.4 cm long, linear, even threadlike, tapering to acute tip, somewhat reflexed (axis bending backward), glabrous (smooth-surfaced) to puberulent (faintly fuzzy), green, sessile (connecting directly to stem without a petiole (leaf stalk). Young growth is gland-dotted and resinous or sticky. Inflorescences are made up of many composite flower heads, each with light to bright yellow ray and disk flowers. There are anywhere from 1 to 8 curving ligules or rays ~0.4-0.6 cm long and between 5 and 20 disk flowers about 0.5-0.8 cm long. Beneath the rays and disks are the involucres, made up of 16-24 phyllaries (bracts) fused and imbricated (woven over one another in a brick-like pattern of 4-5 series' depth) into a structure about 0.3-0.5 cm in diameter, forming a cylindrical or obconic (inverted cone shape) structure. The inflorescences are found at the terminus of axillary stems, which often have whorled leaf clusters. Blooms August through December. Fruit is a brown achene (dry, 1-seed fruit) ~3-4 mm long, somewhat cylindric in shape with 4-7 angles and a pappus (fringe made up of reduced sepals, which help the achenes catch the wind). Plant is a small shrub or subshrub (perennial plant woody at the base but herbaceous higher up), usually < 40 cm tall but can get as tall as 1.75 m. The plant is highly branched and, so, often has a rounded profile, but it can also form sprawling groundcover-like masses. Favors plains and foothills in California sage scrub under 800 m in elevation along the South Coast from Santa Barbara to Baja and in the Colorado/Sonoran desert.
Ericameria palmeri aka Happlopappus palmeri (Asteraceae aka Compositae): Palmer's rabbitbrush or Palmer's goldenweed or Palmer's goldenbush
The development of this key was partially funded through the Geoscience Diversity Enhancement Program (Award #0703798) and through a course of re-assigned time provided by the CSULB Scholarly and Creative Activities Committee. Thanks also to the students in sections of biogeography, introductory physical geography, GDEP, and LSAMP for "test-driving" various editions of this key.