About Xylorhiza cognata (H.M.Hall) T.J.Watson
Xylorhiza cognata is a woody subshrub with branching stems that can reach almost 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) in height. Young stems are hairy and glandular, and lose their hairs as they age. Its leaves range from lance-shaped to oval, with edges that are smooth, toothed, or spiny and holly-like. Its inflorescence is a solitary flower head, which holds up to 30 or more pale lavender to pale violet ray florets surrounding a yellow central disk. Each ray floret (petal) can measure over 2 centimeters in length. This species flowers from January to June. Its fruit is an achene that may be over a centimeter long when including its bristle pappus.
This shrub is endemic to the Colorado Desert in southern California, specifically within Riverside County and Imperial County. Most documented populations grow in the Mecca Hills and Indio Hills, which sit on the southeast side of the Coachella Valley and northeast of the Salton Sea. It grows in arid canyons and bajadas/washes, below 400 metres (1,300 ft) elevation, in creosote bush scrub habitats of the Californian and northwestern Colorado Desert sub-region of the North American Sonoran Desert ecoregion.
