Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants

Class: Magnoliopsida -- dicots

Order: Asterales

Family: Asteraceae -- sunflower

Variety or subspecies: The species is a polyploid complex for which a number of subspecies and/or varieties have been proposed.

Common Name: Oregon sunshine, common woolly sunflower

Species Code: ERLA6

Origin: Native to dry, open, often rocky places in grasslands and dry forest from southern British Columbia to California and east to Montana, Wyoming, and Utah.

Rare: no

Form: forb, perennial, tomentose throughout, 10-60 cm tall.

Duration: perennial

Longevity: short

Habitat Type: prairie, lithosolic prairie

Wetland Indicator Status: not listed

Leaves: mostly alternate but sometimes opposite, upper and lower often entire, the middle pinnatifid or ternate, 1-8 cm long.

Mature height: 8-14 inches

Flowers: heads solitary on a peduncle; ray flowers yellow, pistillate, 10-20 mm long; disc flowers perfect, 4-4.5 mm long; bracts of involucre carinate.

Flower color: yellow

Bloom: May, June

Bloom starts on: mid May

Bloom ends on: late June

Fruit: achene, glabrous to glandular or hairy, slender, black; pappus short, composed of scales or a toothed crown, or lacking entirely.

Characteristics:
Reproduces sexually by seed.
818,000 seeds/lb (Hassell et al 1996).
Short-lived.
A highly variable species.
Ray flowers are pistillate, disc flowers are perfect.
n=8, aneuploidy also occurs (Mooring 1975, 2001).
Diploids, tetraploids, hexaploids and octoploids exist (Mooring 2001).
Almost entirely outcrossed (Mooring 1975, 2001).
Bees, beetles, syrphid flies, butterflies and moths frequent the flowers (Mooring 2001).
Fruit is an achene.
Insect larvae feed on the achenes.
Deer, rabbits and insects eat the foliage (Mooring 2001).

Sun requirement: full

Soil moisture: xeric

Sowing time: fall

Transplant time: spring

Stratification: cold moist

Seed yield: high

Seed harvest: easy

Seed first harvest: first season

Seed cleaning: medium difficulty

Planting duration: short

Seed insect problem: yes

Seed shatter: low

Seed size: medium

Seed harvest date: mid July

Seed comments: individual plants are short-lived but produce prodigious amounts of seed and reproduce readily from that seed

Herbaria: Specimen data and digital resources from The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria

Key words: native perennial forb

Propagation:
2 protocols in the Native Plant Network
California State University
Pullman WA Plant Materials Center

Other Propagation Information:
Seed stored at room temperature remained viable after 8 years (Mooring 1975) but germination decreased sharply after 2 years (Mooring 2001).
Seed germinated at 80% in the dark at 20^oC and at 84% in the dark with alternating temperatures of 20/30^oC (Maguire & Overland 1959).
Seed can be produced in an agricultural setting (Archibald 2006).
Reproduces sexually by seed.

Notes: Eriophyllum lanatum flowers are pretty and foliage is covered with short hairs so the whole plant is a grey-green color except the yellow flowers. It should do well on a dry site. Blooms in June. Common name is Oregon sunshine (Skinner et al 2005).

References:
Archibald, Coleen. 2006. Seed Production Protocols for Anaphalis margaritacea, Eriophyllum lanatum, and Eriogonum umbellatum. Native Plants Journal 7(1):47-51.

Hassell, Wendell, W. Rocky Beavers, Steve Ouellette, and Thomas Mitchell. 1996. Seeding Rate Statistics for Native and Introduced Species. US Department of Interior and US Department of Agriculture, NRCS. Denver, CO.

Maguire, James D., and Alvin Overland. 1959. Laboratory Germination of Seeds of Weedy and Native Plants. Washington State Agricultural Experiment Station Circular 349, Pullman, WA. 15 p.

Mooring, John S. 1975. A Cytogeographic Study of Eriophyllum lanatum (Compositae, Helenieae). American Journal of Botany 62:1027-1037.

Mooring, John S. 2001. Barriers to Interbreeding in the Eriophyllum lanatum (Asteraceae, Helenieae) Species Complex. American Journal of Botany 88:285-312.

Skinner, David M., Paul Warnick, Bill French, and Mary Fauci. 2005. More Palouse Forbs for Landscaping. USDA NRCS Pullman Plant Materials Center and Palouse Prairie Foundation. Online at http://www.wsu.edu/pmc_nrcs/Docs/More_Forbs_for_Landscaping.pdf

Links:
Plant Profile from the USDA PLANTS Database
Species description from Flora of North America
Species information from the University of Washington Herbarium