Heterotheca villosa var. pedunculata

Heterotheca villosa var. pedunculata (Greene) Harms ex Semple is a southern montane race of the species.  It has leaves with some glands and dense (42-60-100/mm²) to very dense (129-270/ mm²) hairs making the leaves look silvery whitish. Stem height varies from 12-71 cm depending upon growing conditions and substrate.

Nesom (2020) raised the variety to species level as Het. pedunculata (Greene) Nesom. Nesom noted that the heads lacked prominent capitular bracts and that the stems and leaves had short, thin-based hairs. Some of the collections Nesom treated as the "Uncompadre variant" of H. pedunculata I had annotated as H. villosa var. pedunculata and some I had annotated as H. pumila. Nesom (2020) treated plants that he considered similar to his H. pedunculata as Het. hartmanii Nesom which were strongly taprooted. These came from the mountains in NW Colorado and just into Wyoming. Nesom also noted that a group of plants from the mountains in central Utah were potentially different enough from his H. pedunculata that he would likely treat them as another separate species in the future. Thus, I conclude that Nesom's and my treatment of the pedunculata race diverge significantly. Once again I think a large sample polygenomic DNA study is needed to determine what are the limits of "pedunculata".

Last revised 8 May 2025 by J.C. Semple

© 2025 J.C. Semple, including all photographs unless otherwise indicated