''Tetradymia comosa'' is a species of flowering plant in the aster family, known by the common name hairy horsebrush.

Distribution

The plant is native to the

Transverse Ranges The Transverse Ranges are a group of mountain ranges of Southern California, in the Pacific Coast Ranges physiographic region in North America. The Transverse Ranges begin at the southern end of the California Coast Ranges and lie within Santa Ba ...

and

Peninsular Ranges The Peninsular Ranges (also called the Lower California province) are a group of mountain ranges that stretch from Southern California to the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula; they are part of the North American Pacific Coast Range ...

in Southern

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

and northern

Baja California Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northwesternmost of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of B ...

. It grows in local chaparral and woodlands

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

s, such as

coastal sage scrub Coastal sage scrub, also known as coastal scrub, CSS, or soft chaparral, is a low scrubland plant community of the California coastal sage and chaparral subecoregion, found in coastal California and northwestern coastal Baja California. It is ...

and montane chaparral and woodlands.

Description

''Tetradymia comosa'' is a whitish woolly

shrub A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple ...

growing to over tall. The leaves are lance-shaped and up to 6 centimeters long, becoming rigid as they age, sometimes with their tips hardening to spines. The

inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...

bears three to six

flower heads A pseudanthium (; : pseudanthia) is an inflorescence that resembles a flower. The word is sometimes used for other structures that are neither a true flower nor a true inflorescence. Examples of pseudanthia include flower heads, composite flowers ...

which are each enveloped in five or six thick phyllaries coated in white woolly hairs. Each head contains five to nine yellow or brownish flowers each around a centimeter long. The fruit is a small, hairy

achene An achene (; ), also sometimes called akene and occasionally achenium or achenocarp, is a type of simple fruit, simple dry fruits, dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. Achenes are monocarpellate (formed from one carpel) and Dehi ...

References

External links

Jepson Manual Treatment: ''Tetradymia comosa''Flora of North America''Tetradymia comosa'' — U.C. Photo gallery
Senecioneae Flora of Baja California Flora of California Natural history of the California chaparral and woodlands Natural history of the Peninsular Ranges Natural history of the Transverse Ranges Flora without expected TNC conservation status {{Senecioneae-stub