A close-up of the inflorescence of silver crown luina as photographed under the powerlines high atop Mitchell Point..........April 19, 2015.
The photo at right, taken about halfway up Reecer Creek Road in the Wenatchee
N.F...........June 22, 1997. Note the simple palmate stem leaves with deeply cleft
margins and the darkly lined involucres.
Silvercrown is an attractive perennial with erect stems arising from 40-100 cm high from woody rhizomes. Most leaves are basal, with those on the stem scattered and becoming much reduced in size upwards on the stem. The basal leaves are long-petiolate with wide palmately cleft blades up to 20 cm long and 25 cm wide. The margins are deeply parted with the segments again coarsely toothed or lobed. The leaves are green above and thinly white tomentose below.
The inflorescence is racemiform or narrowly corymbiform and consists of up to a dozen flower heads. The involucre of individual heads is 10-17 mm high with the disk ranging from 12-30 mm wide.
Silvercrown may be found in open woods and meadows. In the Columbia River Gorge it is often associated with open oak woods.
Silvercrown may be found from the summit and eastern slopes of the Washington Cascades. It may be found just to the south of the Columbia River in Oregon, roughly between The Dalles, OR, Hood River, OR and Mt. Hood. It is also found in the Klamath area and adjacent southern Willamette Valley in southwestern Oregon and hence southward in the California Coast Range to Sonoma County.
In the Columbia River Gorge it may be found between the elevations of 200'-3900' between Mt. Defiance and Seven Mile Hill.
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