Coastal Goldfields

Lasthenia minor is variable; coastal plants tend to have lower stature and broader leaves and tend to flower later in the year. Inland populations were once common in the San Joaquin Valley and are now harder to find as grasslands become cultivated, grazed, or built upon. Epappose plants are common and sometimes comprise entire populations.

Annuals, to 35 cm (herbage not sweetly scented). Stems erect, branched distally, ± woolly, especially distally. Leaves broadly to narrowly linear, 20–120 × 1–10 mm, margins entire or irregularly toothed or lobed (lobes to 1.5 mm), faces glabrous or villous. Involucres hemispheric, 4–6 mm. Phyllaries 7–14, oblong to ovate, hairy (especially at margins). Receptacles conic, muricate, glabrous. Ray florets (8–)13; (corollas light to golden yellow) laminae oblong, 4–8 mm. Anther appendages ovate or elliptic, acute (style apices ± deltate with apical tufts of hairs and subapical fringes of shorter hairs). Cypselae black, narrowly clavate, 2–2.5 mm, glabrous or hairy; pappi 0, or of 2–3(–4) brown or white, lanceolate or subulate, aristate scales plus 4–5+ shorter, ± truncate, fimbriate scales. 2n = 8.

Monolopia minor de Candolle in A. P. de Candolle and A. L. P. P. de Candolle, Prodr. 6: 74. 1838; Baeria minor (de Candolle) Ferris

Eriophyllum minus (DC.) Rydberg
Monolopia minor DC. Prodr. 6: 74. 1837.
A floccose annual; stem simple, about 1 dm. high, floccose; leaves alternate, 1-2 cm. long, the basal ones entire, the rest pinnatifid into linear or lanceolate, ascending divisions, loosely floccose; heads solitary at the end of the stem; peduncles 1-4 cm. long, denseljfloccose; involucre hemispheric, 10-12 mm. broad; bracts 10-12 in two series, united at the base, ovate or lanceolate acute; ligules oval, 3-4 mm. long; disk-corollas 2 mm. long; tube glandularvillous, shorter than the campanulate throat; lobes ovate; achenes 1.5 mm. long, glabrous.
Type locality: California.
Distribution: Known only from the type localit}'.

Lasthenia minor is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common name coastal goldfields. It is endemic to California, where it is a resident of coastal and inland grassland habitat.