Isocoma arguta
Encyclopedia
Isocoma arguta is a species of flowering plant in the daisy family
Asteraceae
The Asteraceae or Compositae , is an exceedingly large and widespread family of vascular plants. The group has more than 22,750 currently accepted species, spread across 1620 genera and 12 subfamilies...

 known by the common name Carquinez goldenbush. It is endemic to Solano County, California
Solano County, California
Solano County is a county located in Bay-Delta region of the U.S. state of California, about halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento and is one of the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties. The county's population was reported by the U.S. Census to be 413,344 in 2010...

, where it grows in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. It is a resident of Suisun Marsh
Suisun Marsh
Located in northern California the Suisun Marsh is the largest brackish marsh on west coast of the United States of America. The marsh land is part of the San Francisco Bay tidal estuary, and subject to tidal ebb and flood...

. It thrives on alkali flats and other mineral-rich soils.

Description

This is a compact subshrub
Subshrub
A subshrub or dwarf shrub is a short woody plant. Prostrate shrub is a similar term.It is distinguished from a shrub by its ground-hugging stems and lower height, with overwintering perennial woody growth typically less than 10–20 cm tall, or by being only weakly woody and/or persisting...

 reaching about half a meter-1.5 feet tall and wide with erect, multibranched stems. The hairy stems bear small gray-green, nonfleshy, glandular leaves each less than 2 centimeters long.

The inflorescence
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...

s hold clusters of thick, knobby flower heads
Head (botany)
The capitulum is considered the most derived form of inflorescence. Flower heads found outside Asteraceae show lesser degrees of specialization....

. Each head is a capsule of layered greenish glandular phyllaries
Bract
In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis, or cone scale. Bracts are often different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of a different color, shape, or texture...

with an array of many cylindrical, protruding golden yellow disc florets at one end.

External links

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