Little Gumweed

Annuals, 30–70 cm. Stems erect, stramineous, villosulous, stipitate-glandular. Cauline leaf blades spatulate or oblong to lanceolate, (12–)35–60(–80) mm, lengths mostly 3–6 times widths, margins ± crenate (teeth 5–10 per cm, blunt, resin-tipped), apices obtuse to acute, faces usually hirtellous and glandular (glands usually stipitate, sometimes sessile, seldom in pits), sometimes glabrate. Heads in open, corymbiform arrays or borne singly. Involucres ± globose, (6–)8–12 × (6–)12–18 mm (usually subtended by leaflike bracts). Phyllaries in 4–6 series, spreading to appressed, linear to lanceolate, apices recurved to ± straight, subulate to acuminate, slightly resinous. Ray florets 13–27, laminae 5–12 mm. Cypselae stramineous to brownish, 2.5–4 mm, apices ± coronate, faces rugose (transversely fissured); pappi of 2–3 straight, smooth or (distally) barbellulate (apices usually dilated), setiform awns 4.5–5.5 mm, equaling or surpassing disc corollas. 2n = 12.

Grindelia microcephala de Candolle var. pusilla Steyermark, Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 21: 467. 1934

Grindelia pusilla, the little gumweed, is a North American species of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. It is found only in the state of Texas in the south-central United States.

Grindelia pusilla grows in open, dry sites, often disturbed. It is an annual herb up to 70 cm (28 in) tall. The plant usually produces numerous flower heads in flat-topped arrays. Each head has 13-27 ray flowers, surrounding a large number of tiny disc flowers.