Family: Asteraceae

These plants are often listed as annuals but we known them to often perennialize, especially in cultivation and on roadsides. Plants grow to about 2.5’ tall. Golden flowers appear spring into summer. If resources (water) are low, plants will go to seed and die during the heat of summer. If there are resources, plants will go dormant and re-emerge from roots in fall. Plants also reseed readily.

Full sun, moderate water, goes to seed in the fall. Hardiness unknown but plants seem to perennialize even in the colder regions south of Tucson.

Flowers attract multitudes of butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, and other species of nectar-seeking insects. Where this plant is native, it is a very important nectar source for butterflies and native bees in particular. Larval host for the Dainty Sulfur (Nathalis iole). Seeds utilized by granivorous birds like goldfinches.

There are 12 species of Hymenothrix native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The genus name, Hymenothrix, comes from Greek hymen, meaning membrane and thrix, bristle, while the species, wislizeni, is named for Frederick Adolf Wislizenus (1810-1889) a botanist who traveled throughout the southwest.

Photo by Katherine Parys, iNaturalist
Hymenothrix wislizeni on SEINET