Spring Pygmycudweed

The two varieties of Diaperia verna intergrade within a broad band inland from the Gulf of Mexico in southeastern Texas. Though some specimens are difficult to assign with confidence, the varieties show enough correlated geographic and ecologic segregation to warrant taxonomic recognition.

As neotypified by J. D. Morefield (2004), the name Evax verna now applies to the taxon that de Candolle named E. multicaulis.

Plants greenish to grayish, 2–15(–25) cm, ± lanuginose. Stems mostly 2–10; branches proximal and distal (distal subopposite), rarely none. Leaves: largest 7–13 × 2–4 mm; capitular leaves subtending glomerules, also ± hidden between and surpassed by heads. Heads mostly distal, in subdichasiform arrays, campanulate to ± spheric, 2–3.3 mm, heights ± equal to diams. Receptacles pulvinate, 0.3–0.6 mm, heights ± 0.2–0.5 times diams. Pistillate paleae scarcely imbricate, longest 1.9–2.7 mm. Staminate paleae mostly 3–5, apices somewhat spreading, ± plane. Functionally staminate florets 3–5; ovaries vestigial, 0–0.1 mm; corollas hidden in heads, actinomorphic, 1.8–2.5 mm, often ± spreading-arachnoid, lobes equal. Bisexual florets 0. Cypselae rounded, ± terete, mostly 0.7–0.9 mm. 2n = 26.

Evax verna Rafinesque, Atlantic J. 1: 178. 1833; E. multicaulis de Candolle

Diaperia verna, common names spring pygmycudweed, spring rabbit-tobacco or many-stem rabbit-tobacco, is a plant species in the sunflower family, native to northern Mexico (from Sonora to Tamaulipas) and the southern United States (from Arizona to Louisiana, with isolated populations (possibly introductions) in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina).

Diaperia verna is an herb with greenish or grayish leaves due to a coating of woolly hairs. One plant usually produces several flower heads, the corollas hidden by surrounding bracts.

Varieties Diaperia verna var. drummondii (Torr. & A.Gray) Morefield - coastal Alabama + Texas Diaperia verna var. verna - Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas; Mexico (Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Sonora, Tamaulipas).