Alternate name: Parachute Plant

Family: Asteraceae, Aster view all from this family

Description A smooth, gray-green plant with a flat rosette of basal leaves and tall spindly stems, openly branched in upper half, with white or pale pink flower heads at branch ends.
Habit: native annual herb; weedy-looking thin branching stem
Height:
Leaf: round to oval, gray-green mottled with purple, somewhat fleshy, with small irregular spiny teeth at edge, in basal rosette; .5-4.5 in (1-12 cm) long, .2-2.5 in (.5-6 cm) wide.
Flower: fragrant, white or pale pink, .6-1.4 in (1.5-3.5 cm) wide; layered rays, rectangular, toothed, inner rays much shorter than outer, yellow to purple-tinted at base; disk inconspicuous.
Fruit: dry seed, to .2 in (5 mm) long.

Flower February to May.

Habitat Dry desert slopes, valleys, and desert washes; to 4600 ft (1400 m).

Range Native to the Mojave and Sonoran deserts: southwest Utah and northwest Arizona, west to Nevada and southeast California, and into Baja California.

Discussion Also known as gravel ghost, parachute plant. The scientific name means the "flat-leaved" (platyphylla) "chicory plant without hairs" (Atrichoseris), referring to the absence of hairs on the fruit.