Coastal Plain Silk Grass

Pityopsis oligantha grows in the Florida panhandle and adjacent areas.

Perennials, 20–50 cm; rhizomes 5–15 cm. Stems usually 1, erect, green to reddish brown, simple, slender, proximal ¹ / 3 silvery sericeous, distal densely stipitate-glandular (glands dark). Leaves: basal overwintering, in rosettes, sessile, blades oblanceolate, grasslike, 80–300 × 3–14 mm, silvery-sericeous; proximal cauline 2–6, blades linear to broadly oblanceolate, somewhat clasping, graminiform, 60–150 × 4–11 mm, ± clasping, apices acute, faces silvery-sericeous (hairs long, anastomosing); distal 10–50 × 2–5 mm. Heads 1–5(–10), in corymbiform arrays. Peduncles 2–14 cm, sometimes with a few long hairs, densely stipitate-glandular; bracteoles 0–4, 2–4 mm. Involucres campanulate, 9–11 mm. Phyllaries in 4–5 series, sparsely stipitate-glandular, margins fimbriate (midnerves pronounced), apices acute, apical hairs twisted-sericeous, faces densely stipitate-glandular. Ray florets 11–16; laminae 9–13 mm. Disc florets 25–40; corollas 6.5–8 mm, glabrate to sparsely short piloso-sericeous, lobes 0.5–0.8 mm, sparsely short piloso-sericeous. Cypselae fusiform, linear- pyriform, 4–5 mm, ribbed, strigose; pappi: outer of linear to linear-triangular scales 0.8–1.4 mm, inner 25–40 bristles 6–7 mm. 2n = 36.

Chrysopsis oligantha Chapman ex Torrey & A. Gray, Fl. N. Amer. 2: 253. 1842; Heterotheca oligantha (Chapman ex Torrey & A. Gray) V. L. Harms