Subshrubs or shrubs, 5-350 cm. Stems erect to ascending, often fastigiately or intricately branched (bark typically tan, becoming white to tan or gray when older; twigs usually greenish), glabrous or scabrous, gland-dotted (sometimes in pits), often resinous. Leaves cauline (usually persistent; often crowded, appressed or ascending to spreading, becoming deflexed); alternate; sessile or petiolate; blades prominently 1-nerved plus sometimes 1-2 pairs of collateral nerves, linear to oblong or lanceolate to narrowly oblanceolate or broadly spatulate (flat to concave), margins entire or coarsely serrate, sometimes ciliate, faces glabrous or scabrous, gland-dotted (sometimes in ± deep, resin-filled pits, sometimes sessile) or pustulate, often ± resinous. Heads discoid (radiate in L. microcephala and L. peirsonii; rays occasionally observed in L. spathulata), usually in congested, rounded, compound, usually cymiform to corymbiform, sometimes racemiform arrays. Involucres cylindric to obconic or hemispheric, (4-15 ×) 1.5-6 mm. Phyllaries 13-30 in 3-6 series (often in vertical ranks), green to tan, 1-nerved (midnerves obscure or evident, sometimes enlarged subapically and glandular; usually flat or convex, sometimes keeled), ovate to oblong or lanceolate to oblanceolate, strongly unequal or subequal, mostly chartaceous, outer sometimes herbaceous or herbaceous-tipped, margins scarious (apices erect or slightly spreading, acute, acuminate, cuspidate, or obtuse), faces often resinous, sometimes stipitate-glandular (in L. peirsonii). Receptacles convex, pitted, epaleate (sometimes bearing scales or awn-like projections). Ray florets 0 or (1-)6-20, pistillate, fertile; corollas pale to dark yellow. Disc florets 4-63, bisexual, fertile; corollas pale to dark yellow, tubes usually shorter than (about equaling in L. salicina) gradually dilated throats, lobes 5, spreading to recurved, lanceolate to triangular; style-branch appendages lanceolate or attenuate to subulate. Cypselae (mostly tan to brownish) oblong to obconic, subterete to prismatic, 4-12-ribbed, faces glabrous or densely hairy; pappi persistent, of 20-80+ tan subequal, fine, barbellate, apically ± clavate bristles in 1 series. x = 9.
Phylogenetic studies (R. P. Roberts and L. E. Urbatsch 2004) support the monophyly of this taxon consisting of species formerly in Chrysothamnus, Hesperodoria, and Tonestus.
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services [MG-70-19-0057-19].