Xylorhiza cognata
species of plant
Xylorhiza cognata is a rare species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common names Mecca-aster and Mecca woodyaster.
Distribution
The shrub is endemic to the Colorado Desert within southern California, in Riverside County and Imperial County. Most known populations are in the Mecca Hills and Indio Hills, located on the southeast side of the Coachella Valley and northeast of the Salton Sea.
It grows in arid canyons and bajadas/washes, below 400 metres (1,300 ft) within creosote bush scrub habitats of the Californian and northwestern Colorado Desert sub-region of the Sonoran Desert ecoregion of North America.
Description
Xylorhiza cognata is a woody subshrub with branching stems that may approach 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) in height. They are hairy and glandular when new and lose their hairs with age. The leaves are lance-shaped to oval with smooth, toothed, or spiny 'holly-like' edges.
The inflorescence is a solitary flower head with up to 30 or more pale lavender to pale violet rays surrounding a yellow central disk. Each petal may measure over 2 centimeters in length. The flowering period is January to June.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Xylorhiza cognata” as species of plant. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of plant. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 2, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q8045514. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Xylorhiza cognata” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.