Sawtooth goldenbush is a fairly short, erect, much-branched perennial with rigid stems that are glabrous below, pubescent above and white-woolly near the flower heads. The many alternate leaves are leathery or stiffly papery, oblong to cuneate-obovate, sharply serrate and clasping at the base, ± hairy, generally not resinous, on the upper surface and woolly beneath on the midrib.  The flowering heads are discoid with obconic involucres and from 30 to 60 lance-oblong to somewhat squarrose-tipped, ashy-gray phyllaries imbricated in 8-10 series and usually recurved.  Each head contains some 9-16 disk flowers which are yellow and tinged with red.  The fruit is a glabrous to sparsely pilose achene with a pappus of white to reddish-brown capillary hairs.  Sawtooth goldenbush inhabits dry slopes below 4500' in coastal sage scrub and chaparral from Santa Barbara Co. to Baja, blooming from July to October. These pictures were taken in Lower Zuma Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Hazardia 2) squarrosa 3) grindelioides.
Pronunciation: ha-ZAR-dee-a skwa-RO-sa grin-del-ee-OH-i-dees.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.