Townsendia

Plant Characteristics
Habit		herbaceous

Cultivation

Features:	✓	flowers

Scientific Names
Asteraceae >	Townsendia >

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Townsendia is a genus of daisies known commonly as Townsend's daisies. These annual, biennial and perennial wildflowers are native to western North America, frequently at high elevation sites. A number of taxa are tall, erect plants, like typical daisies. Meanwhile, others form small, dense, leafy rosettes, or have a more sprawling, prostrate appearance. Frequently, the flower heads are showy and attractive, with the ray florest in shades of pink, purple, blue, white, and, rarely, yellow.

Read about Townsendia in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture
Townsendia (David Townsend, botanical associate of Wm. Darlington, of Pennsylvania). Compositae. Low many-stemmed herbs, nearly all of which are natives of the Rocky Mountains; sometimes planted. Leaves linear or spatulate, entire: heads rather large, resembling those of Aster; rays in 1 series, from violet to rose-purple or white and blooming from early spring to summer.—About 17 species. The annual or biennial species have larger heads than most of the perennials. Judging from the literature, the largest-fld. of the perennials are T. condensata, T. Wilcoxiana, and T. Rothrockii, 3 species which seem not to be in cult. as yet. The species mentioned below are presumably among the most desirable of the genus. They are offered by collectors of Colo. wild flowers. As a genus, Townsendia is distinguished mainly by its achene, which is commonly beset with bristly duplex hairs, having a forked or glochidiate-capitellate apex. Townsendia is practically unknown to floriculture. For fuller account, see Gray's Synoptical Flora of North America and Coulter and Nelson's Manual of Rocky Mountain Botany. T. condensata, Parry. Very lanuginous: lvs. spatulate-obovate, crowded around the large, broad, sessile heads: rays 100 or more, narrow. Wyo.—T. Rothrockii, Gray. Lvs. spatulate, rosulate around the solitary head which is closely sessile at surface of ground, or at length with 1 or 2 additional heads from same crown. Colo.— T. Wilcoxiana, Wood. A small stemless plant: lvs. in rosettes, spatulate, hairy: fl.-heads yellow, on short scapes, 1/2 in. across. Dry plains and hills, Okla. to Colo. ^CH The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.