Description
Slender Townsendia is a low perennial daisy which grows up to about 3 cm high and usually arises from a branched rootstock. Its leaves are green, narrow, linear to lance shaped, 0.6-4 cm long by 1-3 mm wide, and are sparsely covered by straight, stiff, appressed hairs. The flowers are borne in stemless or short-stemmed composite heads. The involucres consist of 4-7 overlapping series of narrow, pointed bracts. The strap-shaped corollas of the ray flowers are white, cream, pink, violet, or blue and are 6-10 mm long and 1-2 mm wide. The disk flowers have shorter, yellow, tubular corollas. Both ray and disk corollas are encircled by a pappus of slender bristles. The achenes are covered with hairs that are barbed at their tips.
Diagnostic Characteristics
The species is distinguished from other stemless TOWNSENDIA by its green, only sparsely hairy leaves with narrow, pointed involucre bracts.