Trichoptilium Incisum, Yellow Dome

Trichoptilium incisum is a small, short-flowering but quite distinctive species, the only member of its genus, and it has a limited distribution in the Mojave and southern Sonoran deserts. Leaves are short, narrow, slightly wider towards the tip, and have sharp teeth or lobes along the edge, but all are mostly hidden by a dense covering of woolly hair. Leaf surfaces are dotted with small glands. Plants produce one stem or several, branching from the base

The inflorescence forms at the top of a slender, leafless, reddish stalk, up to 5 inches tall. Flowerheads are solitary, with a hemispherical involucre ringed by two rows of phyllaries, also somewhat obscured by long hairs. Flowers have disc florets only; several dozen of them, yellow in color, opening to five small lobes. Flowerheads are about half in inch in diameter. Plants bloom in spring and often again in the fall. Flowers become pinkish brown as they wither.