also have long white hairs, at least on the upper 

 portions. The flowering heads have many small 

 florets, the outermost of which have dull to 

 rather bright yellow rays about 1/2-3/^+ inches 

 long; these heads are about 1 - 1 'U inches in 

 diameter. The green bracts beneath the rays are 

 very sticky-gummy, and the individual bract tips 

 are often completely turned downward. The leaves 

 are generally about l'^-3 inches long, and the 

 basal leaves may often be longer. The leaf 

 margins vary from entire in outline to having 

 some small teeth along their edges. The plants 

 are in full flower in July and August. 



B. Technical description: Stems stout, greenish or 

 pale rose-purplish to buff, angled or grooved 

 (especially above), subf ast i g i a te 1 y branched 

 above with stoutish somewhat elongated foliose 

 floriferous branchlets bearing 1-several heads, 

 copiously to sometimes sparsely glandular, and 

 less frequently villous, mostly 6-1^ cm tall; 

 leaves relatively thin, pale green, sparsely or 

 infrequently very resinous-punctate, the surfaces 

 mostly rough and dull, the margins remotely 

 dentate or denticulate to entire, the cauline 

 leaves generally 2-7 cm long, 0.7-2.2 cm broad, 

 oblong to broadly oblong-ovate or ovate- 

 lanceolate, acute to acutish, the upper not much 

 reduced and becoming glandular or glandular- 

 puberulent; heads radiate, 2.5-3 cm broad; disk 

 campanu 1 a te-hemi spher i ca 1 , 1.1-1.3 cm high, 1.5-3 

 cm broad; involucre moderately to heavily 

 resinous, 6-7 seriate, very conspicuously 

 graduated, bracts 1 i near - 1 anceo 1 ate to lanceolate 

 with subulate subterete thickened tips, 3.5-10 mm 

 long, mostly all conspicuously revolute or 

 recurved, glabrous; rays mostly 20-28, rather 

 dull to bright yellow, 9-19 mm long; achenes 

 oblong, 3.5-^.3 mm long, 1.5-2 mm broad, 

 stramineous, striate or ribbed on the faces, 

 mostly truncate at apex (adapted from Steyermark, 

 193^+; Cronquist, 1955). 



C. 



Local field characters: 



Two other Grindelia 



species are known to occur in Montana: G. nana 

 and G. squar rosa . Of these two, only G. squar rosa 

 was found during this study to occur sympa tr ica 1 1 y 

 with G. howel 1 i i . The main distinguishing 

 feature of G. howel 1 i i is its possession of 

 glandular, and sometimes villous, stems; this 

 characteristic is best expressed on upper portions 

 of the stems, and on the branches below the heads. 

 In contrast, G. squar rosa has stems which are 

 entirely glabrous. In some populations, 



