Yellow pincushion

Chaenactis glabriuscula, the yellow pincushion, is an annual herb of the Asteraceae native to California, southern Oregon, Nevada, and northern Baja California, where it occupies open sandy or gravelly soils in coastal scrub, grassland, chaparral, and desert washes. Plants reach 10–60 cm with one to several erect, sparsely branched stems that are arachnoid-woolly when young and become glabrate. Leaves are alternate, mostly in a basal cluster and on the lower stem, oblong in outline, 2–8 cm long, 1–2 pinnately divided into short, crowded, fleshy lobes; foliage is sparsely white-woolly. The inflorescence is an open corymb of 3–25 heads on slender peduncles; involucres are cylindrical to bell-shaped, 8–12 mm tall, with 1–2 series of linear-lanceolate, glabrate, herbaceous phyllaries. Heads are discoid—lacking ray florets—with 20–60 deep yellow tubular disc florets; outer florets are sometimes enlarged and 2-lipped, giving a pincushion-like asymmetric corona. Achenes are linear-clavate, dark, with a pappus of 4 lanceolate scales. Flowering occurs March–June.