Acamptopappus shockleyi
Mesquite Mts., CA . April 2005
Primarily on rocky soils in the Mojave
Desert of eastern California and
western Nevada.

Acamptopappus sphaerocephalus
San Bernardino Co.: Near Jct. of I5
and Nipton Rd., Spjut 15227, May 2003.
Commonly seen in the Joshua Tree Woodland, Mojave Desert, CA to AZ & UT.

Acamptopappus shockleyi
Mineral Co., NV
May 2002

Trees and Shrubs of Kern County (Sep 2012)

Acamptopappus sphaerocephalus (Aplopappus sphaerocephalus Harvey & A. Gray 1849) A. Gray 1873.  Goldenhead. Small rounded, much-branched shrubs < 1m high and broad, stems white, thin but somewhat stiff and sharply pointed, striate; leaves alternate, usually < 4× longer than wide, narrowly elliptic to somewhat spoon-shaped, 4–22 mm long, 1–5 mm wide, erect to recurved or twisted, somewhat thick and glossy, 1-nerved; flowers appearing in the spring, the flower stalks (peduncles) often persistent with remains of the flower heads; flowers yellow, 14–22 in a head, entirely discoid, the heads solitary, or several from a branching peduncle, globose in bud, involucral bracts imbricate in 3 ranks; cypselae with a white hairy pericarpium and terminal setaceous bristles.  Common in the desert landscape where soils are rocky or gravelly, below 4,800 ft, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California from Inyo Co to San Diego Co.  The epithet is in reference to the spherical flower heads. Type from California. Two varieties, both in Kern Co., (259-) 609–1,341 m; var. hirtellus S. F. Blake 1929 [Type from Lone Pine, CA], distinguished by the densely short hairy stems and leaves, apparently more common, the only variety reported by Twisselmann.