Pentanema montanum

Pentanema montanum is a perennial herb of the Asteraceae family growing 15-40 cm tall from a short, branched, woody rhizome. Stems are erect, simple or sparingly branched at the base, densely clothed with appressed silvery to greyish-white hairs throughout. Leaves are alternate, sessile, lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate 3-8 cm long and 0.5-2 cm wide, entire to remotely toothed, acute at the apex and tapering at the base, conspicuously silvery-tomentose on both surfaces. The inflorescence consists of one to three large, solitary terminal heads 3-6 cm across with an involucre of several rows of linear-lanceolate, densely woolly, herbaceous bracts. Ray florets are numerous, narrowly strap-shaped, 15-25 mm long, golden-yellow and conspicuously radiating; disc florets are tubular, deep yellow and crowded into a flat central disc. The achene is small, ribbed and bears a pappus of slender bristles approximately equal in length to the disc corolla. Native to dry, calcareous, stony grasslands, rocky pastures and open scrub of montane and submontane zones of southern Europe and parts of North Africa, flowering in early to midsummer.