Bush senecio or shrubby butterweed, formerly recorded as Senecio douglasii, is a branched, bushy perennial shrub or subshrub growing to 4-1/2' tall with striate stems and white-tomentose herbage especially when young.  The leaves are threadlike and alternate, sometimes deeply pinnately divided into five to nine narrow linear segments, glabrate and gray-green above, tomentose beneath, mostly 1"-4" long.  The principal leaves often have axillary fascicles of smaller leaves.  The radiate flowering heads are showy and numerous in ± open clusters at the ends of slender branches.  There are 10-13 yellow ray flowers with ligules about 1/2" long and many yellow disk flowers. The fruit is a canescent 1/8"-long achene.  Bush senecio is a common plant in gravelly washes and dry creek beds, and along roads and trails in coastal sage scrub and chaparral, mostly away from the coast but below 6000', blooming from June to October.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Senecio 2) flaccidus 3) douglasii.
Pronunciation: sen-EE-see-oh FLAS-i-dus DUG-las-ee-eye.
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