Pectis angustifolia is a lovely, minute plant growing from one to twenty centimeters tall.  The plants shown on this page are all less than two centimeters tall!  Pectis angustifolia is not a common plant in the Four Corners area, but when it is present it is easy  to notice because its flowers are in such a mass of bright yellow and because it occurs on bare, open sands.  Notice several characteristics: the bulging phyllaries in even rows under the ray flowers (see especially the very center of the photograph) and the small, comb-like, single teeth at the widening part of the leaf base.  The teeth gave rise to the genus name "Pectis" from the Latin for "comb".  Unfortunately web sites do not allow us (yet?) to smell the wonderful lemon scent of this plant.

Linnaeus named this genus in 1753 and John Torrey named this species in 1827 from a specimen collected by Edwin James.