Bigelow's sneezeweed is a stout single- or many-stemmed perennial growing 3'-4' tall which often can be found near moisture.  The leaves are alternate, entire-margined, the lower petioled and the cauline sessile, clasping and decurrent, up to 8" long and 2-1/2" wide, and lanceolate to lance-linear in outline.  The heads are yellow, mostly solitary on long leafless peduncles, and are comprised of spheric receptacles about 3/8" wide with many disk flowers and 14-20 strongly 3-lobed ray flowers that are ± reflexed. There is a pappus of 5-10 awn-tipped scales.  Bigelow's sneezeweed occupies wet meadows, marshes, bogs and other seepy places at 5000' to 8500' in the Transverse and Peninsular Ranges and north, blooming from June to August.  These pictures were taken along the Angeles Crest Highway in the San Gabriel Mts and at South Fork Meadows in the San Bernardinos.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Helenium  2) bigelovii.
Pronunciation: hel-EN-ee-um big-el-OH-vee-eye.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.