Semi-desert. Pinyon/Juniper woodlands, shrublands. Summer, fall.
Calf Creek Falls Trail, Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument, Utah, October 23, 2007.

Psilostrophe sparsiflora catches your eye with its bright yellow flowers and the symmetrical roundness of the overall plant.  It grows to twenty inches tall, has green stems (and is sometimes, therefore, called "Greenstem Paper Flower"), and often (as in this photograph) loses its lower stem leaves by anthesis (flowering time). There are usually three, large, rounded, and lobed ray flowers which droop at maturity (see bottom photos).  The plant is not found in Colorado but is found in the other Four Corners states.

Augustin de Candolle named this genus.  Asa Gray named this species Riddellia tagetina variety sparsiflora in 1884 from a specimen collected in Utah by Bishop.  Aven Nelson renamed it Psilostrophe sparsiflora in 1903.

Semi-desert. Pinyon/Juniper woodlands, shrublands. Summer, fall.
Calf Creek Falls Trail, Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument, Utah, October 23, 2007.

Stems are green and freely branching; leaves are thick, linear, narrow (2-13 millimeters), and have minute hairs whose pustulate-bases show as silvery dots in the photograph immediately below.  Overall hairiness of the plants is variable; the plants pictured were heavily cobwebby hairy on the upper stems and around the base of the flowers, a bit less hairy on the leaves, and only scattered hairs were on the stems.

Semi-desert. Pinyon/Juniper woodlands, shrublands. Summer, fall.
Calf Creek Falls Trail, Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument, Utah, October 23, 2007.

Ray petals are large and bright yellow; disk flowers are few (5-10) and tightly packed together.  As the photograph immediately below indicates, drooping ray flower petals persist, turning a papery yellow.