Hard to see, but some tiny teeth on the edge of these hairy leaves distinguish this species from related Madia species.
I've long wanted to get this species started both in Seattle again, as it was on my 1999 list of Seattle's lost ("extirpated") species, this one last recorded in Seattle by the herbaria in 1889 (Alki Point), or 1892 (location not clear) and the flower looked beautiful. I moved these 2 plants to Lincoln Park from the South Puget Sound area a few months ago, and chose a promising mossy forest edge for them, and they were both looking great, until a presumed Eastern Cottontail rabbit chewed one down to the top of the root, but the smaller rosette is what grew back after the Leporine (rabbit caused) setback! I tried the species in the park once before, and that plant didn't get far before dying, but I'm optimistic with these 2!
An annual, that has now been self seeded for 3 years, it technically fits the iNaturalist definition of "wild", but this population in Seattle is one I started. I started this "colony" in the crack between a telephone pole and the asphalt of the parking lot of my coffee shop about 3 years ago with a few seeds of Thurston County rock outcrop genetic origin. A favorite species of mine for my guerilla re-wilding (I don't ask the permission of a nominal land "owner"), filling in the cracks of the urbanized landscape with natives adapted to it! There are more dwarfed Collomias in smaller surrounding pavement cracks, that came from the mothers by the telephone pole.
This species is on a list of native species that historically had grown in Seattle, but hadn't been recorded here for decades, when I started with the Thurston outcrop seed in Seattle in various rockeries, and thin soils over pavement, here about 20 years ago. Each time I pass, I pull another alien weed away from the patch, and now that its seeds are sprinkled over the asphalt, I am picking up a few seeds with my wet finger tip each time pass, for my next guerrilla seeding!
All along yarrow and fireweed roads
Skinner Butte