General: Cooper's Dogweed (Adenophyllum cooperi) is a low growing, subshrub with short, upright stems and spiky leaves. The leaves have oil glands. The plant is generally inconspicuous on the landscape, but when brushed or stepped on, it releases a pungent odor.

Cooper's Dogweed is a fairly component of vegetation communities on well-drained sandy, gravelly, and rocky soils in washes and on upper bajadas and moderate slopes into the lower mountains in the Lower Sonoran (Creosote-Bursage Flats) and Upper Sonoran (Mojave Desert Scrub and Pinyon-Juniper Woodland) life zones.

Family: Sunflower (Asteraceae).

Other Names:

Plant Form: Low-growing, mounded subshrub.

Height: To about 18 inches, usually lower.

Bark: Smooth, green.

Stems: Upright, branching

Leaves: Alternate, sessile, stiff, to about 1 inch long. Oblanceolate with lobes. Lobes with spines. Base of leaf with two glands, one more at the tip.

Flowers: Blooms in spring. Inflorescence: flowerhead with disk and ray flowers. Phyllaries overlap, linear, each with a gland. Ray flowers 7 to 13, about 1/3 inch long, yellow to red-orange. Ray flowers often look narrower than might be expected. Disk flowers many; yellow.

Seeds: Achene.

Habitat: Dry, well-drained sandy, gravelly, and rocky soils on upper bajadas and moderate slopes in the lower mountains.

Elevation: About 2,000 to 5,000 ft.

Distribution: Southern California to northwestern Arizona.

Comments: Very stinky plant.