Semi-desert. Openings, hills. Spring, summer, fall.
Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, October 9, 2007.

This aromatic taxa occurs just in the Four Corners states, although there are several other varieties of Platyschkuhria integrifolia that are found north of the Four Corners states and one that occurs in Wyoming and Montana. 

Platyschkuhria integrifolia grows singly or in small clumps on hot, barren-seeming ground, sometimes in gulches where it gets just the small amount of water it needs.  Plants often can be found dotting the ground in a pattern indicating that they are sprouting from spreading roots.  Plants normally bloom in early summer but rains can, as they did for the plant pictured at left, bring on fall flowers.

In 1874 Asa Gray named this plant Schkuhria integrifolia from a specimen collected by Charles Parry in Wyoming.  In 1883 Gray renamed the plant Bahia nudicaulis   In 1906 Per Axel Rydberg renamed it Platyschkuhria integrifolia.  "Platy" is Greek for broad and refers to the leaves; "schkuhria" is a similar looking Asteraceae genus with narrow leaves, so the name Platyschkuhria means, "similar to Schkuhria but with broader leaves".  Christian Schkuhr was a German gardener who published a Handbook of Botany.  (More biographical information about Schkuhr.)

Semi-desert. Openings, hills. Spring, summer, fall.
McElmo Canyon, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, June 9, 2007.

Plants can have one to few stems as in the above photograph or they can have multiple stems.

Semi-desert. Openings, hills. Spring, summer, fall.
McElmo Canyon, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, June 9, 2007.

Clumps of basal leaves are surrounded by last year's dead stems and leaves.

Semi-desert. Openings, hills. Spring, summer. fall.
Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, October 9, 2007.

Notice a number of flower characteristics that help to identify this plant: 

In the top photograph at left you can see that ray flowers are rather short and are notched, often twice, at their tips producing two or three lobes.

And finally, notice the rounded, bulging mound of disk flowers.