About Psilocarphus elatior A.Gray
Psilocarphus elatior is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, which has three common names: tall woollyheads, meadow woollyheads, and tall woolly-marbles. It is native to the Pacific Northwest region of western North America, where its range extends from Vancouver Island (it is only known from a small number of occurrences there) south to northern California. This plant grows in areas that are seasonally moist, including meadows, spring seeps, and vernal pools. It is a small erect annual herb that reaches a maximum height of around 15 centimeters. It has a pale silvery or gray-green branching stem that is covered in woolly or cobwebby fibers. Its leaves are linear or lance-shaped, and grow up to roughly 3.5 centimeters long. The leaves grow along the stem, and the plant produces no basal leaves. The plant's inflorescence is a small spherical flower head that measures less than one centimeter wide, growing at the tip of the stem or in leaf axils. The flower head is a cluster of several tiny woolly disc flowers, surrounded by leaflike bracts but no phyllaries. Every tiny flower is covered by a scale that is densely woolly with long white fibers, which gives the developing flower head a cottony appearance.
