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Tonestus pygmaeus; photograph Joshua Smith, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF CC0Joshua Smith, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF

Tonestus pygmaeus (Torr. & A.Gray) A.Nelson

Pygmy goldenweed

Asteraceae · Colorado, Montana +2

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Tonestus pygmaeus, photograph Jared Shorma, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFTonestus pygmaeus, photograph Jared Shorma, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFTonestus pygmaeus, photograph Jared Shorma, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFTonestus pygmaeus, photograph Stephen Hornbeck, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFTonestus pygmaeus, photograph Reid Hardin, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFTonestus pygmaeus, photograph Matt Berger, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF 22 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Cold floor (1 night in 100)
-25.8°C
Record low -39.0 °C in 44 years, at a typical spot in the range NASA POWER
Warmest month, mean daily high
19°C
Jul at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
905mm
12 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
17–50DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in your months, northern hemisphere
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
Rain spread: 70% of the median year's rain takes 8 months, so no short rainy season. rain rule, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Summary

Tonestus pygmaeus, the pygmy serpentweed or pygmy goldenweed, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is endemic to the western United States, where it is found in New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. The occurrence of pygmy serpentweed in Montana is based solely upon historical specimens.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Tonestus pygmaeus", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Seasons

The rain rule reads no short rainy season: 70% of the median year's rain (679 mm of 901 mm) takes 8 months, March to October. Mean temperature moves 24.2 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: September to April.

Rain

901 mm in the median year at the habitat, 679 mm of it March to October. Wettest month August at 118 mm, driest month January at 52 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 695 mm to 1,280 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 905 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 901 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, northern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.

Light

Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 50 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 14, the highest 90th-percentile month 52).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is -25.8 °C, the absolute minimum -39.0 °C, 12,046 frost nights in 44 years, 273.8 a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 24.7 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low -18.1 °C in December (across the grid cells of the range -20.6 °C to -15.3 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 18.5 °C in July (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: -25.8 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 47 to 56% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

How this section is made

Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.

Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain. CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the grid cells of the range. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light. CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Temperature. NASA POWER daily minima and maxima over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, lapse-corrected +688 m to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. The cold floor is the 1st-percentile night named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat months, northern hemisphere

Habitat climate of Tonestus pygmaeus through the yearWarmest month July, mean daily high 19 °C; coldest month December, mean nightly low -18.1 °C; 901 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA; the extremes at the edge from NASA POWER. Habitat months, northern hemisphere.-40°-20°0°20°40°frost24.7° 99th-percentile day, NASA POWER-39.0° lowest night in 44 years, NASA POWER°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 17–50RH 47–56%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 186 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low extremes over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, from NASA POWER, marked at the edge, in no month DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C-6 / -8–-4-5 / -6–-2-2 / -3–12 / 0–68 / 6–1215 / 13–1819 / 16–2117 / 15–1913 / 11–156 / 4–9-2 / -3–1-6 / -8–-4
Night °C-18 / -20–-15-17 / -19–-14-14 / -16–-11-10 / -12–-8-5 / -7–-20 / -2–44 / 2–74 / 2–7-1 / -2–3-7 / -9–-4-14 / -17–-10-18 / -21–-15
Rain mm52 / 27–8954 / 30–9676 / 53–11385 / 57–11879 / 61–11265 / 50–89114 / 87–154118 / 86–17178 / 61–13164 / 49–11058 / 33–9558 / 31–95
DLI19 / 17–2226 / 24–2835 / 33–3743 / 41–4548 / 46–4950 / 48–5246 / 45–4741 / 40–4236 / 35–3828 / 26–3021 / 18–2317 / 14–19
RH %55 / 50–6056 / 52–5955 / 52–5853 / 49–5551 / 47–5347 / 45–5050 / 47–5253 / 50–5551 / 49–5352 / 49–5354 / 49–5755 / 50–60
How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 186 grid cells holding the 410 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. A dash is a month one or more of those cells has no figure for in the grid (a variable CHELSA does not carry there), so no median is taken rather than one over fewer cells. Extremes and elevation were read at a typical spot in the range, cell 1003:1484 (39.825, -105.775). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -39.0 °C, 1st-percentile night -25.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 24.7 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Across the range: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 186 distinct grid cells holding 410 of the 410 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1003:1484 (its coldest month's mean nightly low nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 40.00_-105.625, lapse-corrected +688 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 3402 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across the cells of the in-range records placed well enough to read one, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeColorado, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker39.63, -105.808 · in the densest population, 366 records (69% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 529 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 410 of them placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 243 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 71 km away. 119 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 529 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Tonestus pygmaeus, photograph 1did not loadTonestus pygmaeus, photograph 2did not loadTonestus pygmaeus, photograph 3did not loadTonestus pygmaeus, photograph 4did not loadTonestus pygmaeus, photograph 5did not loadTonestus pygmaeus, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: Jared Shorma, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (3); Stephen Hornbeck, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; Reid Hardin, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; Matt Berger, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF.

Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.

Trifolium nanum Trifolium nanum Dwarf clover Photo: CC BY, Carol Ann McCormickAngelica grayi Angelica grayi Gray's angelica Photo: CC BY, Anders HastingsParonychia pulvinata Paronychia pulvinata Rocky Mountain nailwort Photo: CC BY, Jared LincenbergHymenoxys grandiflora Hymenoxys grandiflora Graylocks four-nerve daisy Photo: CC BY, Whitney Brook MatsonErigeron melanocephalus Erigeron melanocephalus Blackhead fleabane Photo: CC BY, Anders HastingsErigeron pinnatisectus Erigeron pinnatisectus Featherleaf fleabane Photo: CC0, author not stated

Other Tonestus 1 in the reference

Tonestus lyallii Tonestus lyallii Lyall's goldenweed Photo: CC0, Thompson Hyggen

Names & registers

Also known as Aster stenotus; Haplopappus pygmaeus; Macronema pygmaeum; Stenotus pygmaeus; Stenotus pygmoeus. (GBIF Backbone)

Registers not checked Wikidata did not answer when this page was built, so the links it gives (POWO, IPNI, World Flora Online, Wikipedia) were not checked; any shown here are kept from an earlier build. Not asked, or not answered, is not "none": nothing here claims there is none. Why the site says it this way.
GBIFWikipedia

The record

Family
Asteraceae
Described by
(Torr. & A.Gray) A.Nelson
Native to
Colorado, Montana, Wyoming +1
Wild records
529 in range · 243 open

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21
Habitat climate climate answeredasked 2026-10-22
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 40.00_-105.625, lapse-corrected +688 m at 6.5 °C/km
Wikidata wikidata failedasked 2026-10-22query.wikidata.org 502 (batched: Wikidata's query service, 100 GBIF keys)
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist taxon inat.taxon not asked
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild not asked
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 30 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

Opening your plants…