May

Salsify produces multiple stems one to three feet tall that when torn emit a milky sap. The leaves are long and very narrow. Each branch produces one flower head. The daisy-like yellow flowers open early in the morning and often close by late afternoon. The longer the days the more likely it is to flower.

Western groundsel is a fairly tall plant (eight to twenty-eight inches) with a single upright stem and large, smooth-edged leaves. Although daisy-like, groundsels appear flat-topped with several to numerous small, yellow heads borne near the tips of equal-height branches.

The name “white-leaf” refers to the silky-white hairiness of the leaves of this phacelia. Dense short hairs lend the plants an overall grayish-green color. The plant grows up to twenty inches tall. Roughly the upper half of the plant consists of branched flowering coiled clusters.

Sagebrush stickseed flowers are white and showy but tiny, less than half an inch wide, and the simple petals look just like a child would draw a basic flower. The leaves are coarse, hairy, and rather short, two to seven inches long, with a cluster at the base and smaller leaves going up the stems.

The parsnip-flower buckwheat is a long-lived plant with woody stems that branch at the base and small, narrow, densely hairy or woolly basal leaves. It grows in clumps about two feet broad and sixteen inches high. Small white or yellow flowers form dense single or multiple umbrella-like clusters at the end of the upright, nearly leafless stems.

Bearded hawksbeard closely resembles a dandelion, except that it grows up to two feet tall with multiple heads on one or two branched stems. The leaves grow from the base and look like an animal has taken bites out of the edges. The edges look viciously sharp, but they are not.

Bastard toadflax grows in clumps up to a foot tall, and has smooth alternating leaves from a quarter to an inch and a half long. The tiny flower starts as a tight little ball which opens up into a star formed by the five sepals. There are no petals. Blossoms remain open night and day for two days.

Dusty maidens have a highly branched stem up to two feet tall with a compact cluster of one to five inch long leaves at the base. The branches are tipped with white or tan flowers that look like pompoms. These flower heads are made up of tubular white flowers in a dense round cluster.

In the Sage Hills, whitetop often forms a sea of sweet-smelling white flowers. Whitetop grows upright from a single stem eight to twenty inches tall. The flower head is typically flat-topped and dense with white flowers. Flowers have four widely-spaced petals.