There are a good many kinds of Chaenactis, the flower-heads with
tubular flowers only, but in some kinds the marginal flowers are larger
and have a broad border resembling a kind of ray.
[Sidenote: =Chaenactis=
_Chaenáctis Douglásii_
=White
Spring, summer
Utah, Cal., New Mex.=]
A rather pretty plant, from eight inches to over a foot tall and more
or less downy, with stiffish, gray-green, leaves, cut into many short,
blunt lobes and teeth. The flower-heads are about an inch long, and
contain numerous small, pearly-white or pinkish, tube-shaped flowers,
with long, purplish pistils. This grows in dry open places, the flowers
turn pink in fading and are sweet-smelling and quite pretty, though not
striking. _C. macrántha_, which grows in the Grand Canyon, has similar
flowers, rather prettier, with a somewhat sickly scent, but it is a
lower plant.
[Sidenote: =Golden Girls=
_Chaenáctis lanòsa_
=Yellow
Spring
California=]
A charming desert plant, with several downy stems, over a foot tall,
springing from a feathery cluster of pretty, bright green, thickish
leaves, cut into narrow divisions, rather downy and often tinged with
red. The flower-head is nearly an inch and a half across, without rays,
but the marginal flowers in the head are larger and have broad borders
that look like rays. They are a beautiful shade of clear bright yellow.
[Sidenote: =Morning Bride=
_Chaenáctis Fremóntii_
=White
Spring
Southwest=]
This is very much like the last in size, form, and foliage and is
equally charming, but the flowers are all pure white, or pinkish,
instead of yellow. It is one of the most attractive of the white desert
flowers.
[Sidenote: =Desert Star=
_Erimiástrum bellidoìdes_
=Lilac
Spring
Arizona=]
A charming little desert plant, with spreading stems and small, narrow,
toothless, gray bluish-green leaves, which are soft, but sprinkled with
small, stiff, white bristles, the whole forming a rosette, five or six
inches across, growing flat on the sand and ornamented with many pretty
little flowers. They are each set off by a little rosette of leaves and
are over half an inch across, with pinkish-lilac rays, shading to white
towards the yellow center and tinted with bright purple on the back.
[Illustration: Desert Star--Erimiastrum bellidoides.
Chaenactis--C. Douglasii.