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Townsendia nuttallii Dorn 



NUTTALL TOWNSEND-DAISY 



Aster Family (Asteraceae) 



CONSERVATION STATUS: 



U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: None. 



Montana Bureau of Land Management: None. 



Montana Natural Heritage Program rank: G3-S2S3. 



DESCRIPTION: Nuttall Townsend-daisy is a small, cushion-forming, stemless perennial 

 arising from a taproot and branched rootcrown. The clustered basal leaves are narrow and linear, 

 but they expand into a small spoon-like tip. They are 5-20 mm long and 1-3 mm wide with 

 entire margins. Foliage is densely covered with long, straight, silvery hairs. Flower heads are 

 borne among the basal leaves. Each head has 3-4 series of narrow, pointed, green, and hairy 

 involucral bracts, 4-9 mm long. The white to (more conimonly) lavender ray flowers are ca. 8 

 mm long, and the yellow disk corollas are 4-5 mm long (Figure 28). The flattened, lance-shaped 

 seeds (achenes) have only a few scattered hairs when mature and are topped by straight, stiff 

 bristles (pappus) ca. 5-6 mm long in disk flowers and ca. 0.5 mm long in ray flowers (from Dorn 

 1988). 



Townsendia niittaUii is very similar to T. hookeri, but the latter has achenes that are hairy when 

 mature, and the pappus of both its ray and disk flowers is long. It also has leaves which are 

 broadest at the tip, while Townsendia hookeri always has linear leaves. Its distribution also 

 overlaps with T spathulata, which, by comparison, has broad involucral bracts, obovate leaves, 

 and foliage covered by loose, woolly hairs. The basal rosette leaves resemble, but are much 

 smaller than, Senecio canus (shown side-by-side in Appendix D-29). 



GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION 



Global distribution: Western 2/3 of Wyoming, adjoining Utali, and southwest Montana; 

 a regional endemic which Hartman et al. (1991) also expect to be Idaho. 



Montana distribution: 10 occurrences in southwestern Beaverhead County and one in 

 Granite County (Figure 28). (Note: specimens in the Townsendia hookeri folders have 

 been reviewed and annotated as appropriate at both MONT and MONTU). 



Grasshopper distribution: 6 occurrences scattered across the Study Area (Figure 28). 



