Mountain Tail Leaf

Populations of Pericome caudata may vary in leaf shape, head size, and indument, particularly in some far western and eastern populations. Central populations (e.g., in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona) tend to have relatively large, deltate-hastate leaves with long-attenuate tips and capitulescences of medium-sized heads. Specimens from Nevada and California often have smaller, ovate or cordate distal leaves with short-attenuate tips, as well as larger and fewer heads per capitulescence. Oklahoma specimens are often coarsely pubescent with copious glands and have leaves similar to the Nevada and California populations. This variability does not appear to warrant taxonomic distinction, nor does the presence or absence of pappus bristles appear to be taxonomically significant.

Stems striate, terete, glabrous or hairy, often densely puberulent to tomentulose distally, sometimes gland-dotted. Leaves: petioles (5–)10–45 mm; blades (2–)3.5–12(–15) × 1–12 cm. Heads 3–30+, usually tightly clustered. Peduncles 0.5–4 cm. Involucres 4.5–10 × 4–10 mm. Phyllaries 0.5–1 mm wide, apices attenuate. Disc corollas: tubes 1–3.5 mm, throats 2–5.5 mm, lobes 0.5–1 mm. Cypselae 3–5 mm; pappi crowns to ca. 1 mm plus 0–2 bristles 1–4.5 mm. 2n = 36.

Pericome caudata var. glandulosa (Goodman) H. D. Harrington; P. glandulosa Goodman

Pericome caudata A. Gray, PI. Wright. 2: 82. 1853
A tall branched perennial; stems 1-1.5 m. high, terete, striate, minutely puberulent; petioles 1-3 cm. long; blades hastate or deltoid, caudate-acuminate, entire or sinuate, 5-10 cm. long, minutely puberulent and punctate, pedately 3-5-ribbed; heads in terminal cymes; pedicels 1-2 cm. long; involucre turbinate-campanulate, 5-6 mm. high and nearly as broad; bracts about 20, linear, acuminate, puberulent; corollatube about 1.5 mm. long; throat about
3 mm. long; achenes narrowly-oblong, about 3 mm. long, sparingly hirsute or glabrate on the faces, densely hirsute-ciliate on the callous margins; crown of pappus about I mm. long; awns
4 mm. long or more, or commonly wanting.
Type locality: Copper Mines [Santa Rita del Cobre], New Mexico.
Distribution: Western Texas to southern Colorado, Nevada, southern California, and Chihuahua.

Pericome caudata is a species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common name mountain tail-leaf. It is native to the southwestern United States as far east as Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas, as well as northern Mexico, where it grows in rocky habitat, often in hills and mountains, and sometimes in disturbed areas. It is a large, branching, leafy perennial herb or subshrub approaching 2 meters in maximum height. It is glandular, resinous, sparsely hairy, and aromatic. The leaves are somewhat triangular, sometimes with a few large teeth or sharp lobes, the blade measuring up to 12 centimeters long and borne on a petiole. The leaf size and shape is variable across the species' range. The inflorescence is a cluster of many flower heads each under a centimeter wide and filled with golden yellow disc florets. The Navajo used this plant for a variety of medicinal and ceremonial purposes.