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Synonym: Bahia dissectaAmauriopsis dissecta.
Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)

Foothills, montane. Disturbed areas, meadows. Summer, fall.
Chimney Rock Anasazi Site, September 16, 2005.

Bahia dissecta is fairly common in late summer and early fall growing along roadsides and on dry, gravelly or sandy, open sites in the lower mountains.  It has an open, airy growth pattern, grows from 8 to 36 inches tall, and has bright golden/yellow flowers, almost always with rounded, short overlapping ray flowers and a large mound of disk flowers.  

"Bahia" is for Juan Francisco Bahi, Professor of Botany in Barcelona, Spain in the 19th century.  (More biographical information.)  

"Dissecta", "cut into pieces", refers to the finely cut leaves which occur sparsely along the red/brown stems and more noticeably at the base of the stem.  The basal leaves in the picture at left are in their fall maroon.

Bahia dissecta

The genus was named by Lagasca in 1816 from a specimen collected in Chile, probably by Sesse and Mocino on their 1787-1803 Spanish Royal Expedition to New Spain.

Augustus Fendler collected the first plants of this species near the Mora River in New Mexico in about 1846.  This species was at first named Amauria dissecta by Asa Gray in 1849; in 1889 Britton named it Bahia dissecta and that name was widely accepted for over a centuryIn 1914 Per Axel Rydberg maintained that the species is not a Bahia and he placed it in a new genus, Amauriopsis, but that designation was not widely acceptedRydberg's Amauriopsis dissecta name has now been reaffirmed almost a hundred years later as the name of this species.

Bahia dissecta

Synonym: Bahia dissectaAmauriopsis dissecta.
Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)

Foothills, montane. Disturbed areas, meadows. Summer, fall.
Highway 145 north of Dolores, August 25, 2005.

The spreading and arching of leafless flower stems is typical of Bahia's growth pattern.

Bahia dissecta

Synonym: Bahia dissectaAmauriopsis dissecta.
Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)

Foothills, montane. Disturbed areas, meadows. Summer, fall.
Chimney Rock Anasazi Site, September 16, 2005.

Gently rounded petal tips are slightly notched.  Ray flowers overlap and each ray flower is just a bit shorter than the central disk of flowers. The flowers pictured at left are typical of Bahia dissecta; the ones below (more yellow, longer ray flowers, spaces between the ray flowers) are less common and show the wide variety that life forms can take.  

Synonym: Bahia dissectaAmauriopsis dissecta.
Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)

Foothills, montane. Disturbed areas, meadows. Summer, fall.
Highway 145 north of Dolores, August 25, 2005.

Fine hairs cover much of Bahia dissecta.  All the plants growing in the area of this photograph had narrower and longer rays and were more yellow than most Bahias.

 

Range map © John Kartesz,
Floristic Synthesis of North America

State Color Key

Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state

County Color Key

Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Native species, but adventive in state
Eradicated
Questionable presence

Range map for Bahia dissecta (Amauriopsis dissecta)