Rydbergia grandiflora (Old Man of the Mountain)
Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)

Alpine. Tundra. Summer.

The genus name honors a giant in Colorado botany, Per Axel Rydberg, who wrote Flora of the Rocky Mountains and Adjacent Plains in 1917.

The plant was first collected for science by John Fremont in the early 1840s in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming and it was named Actinella grandiflora by Torrey and Gray in 1845.  In 1898 Edward Greene named it Rydbergia grandiflora and in 1980 K. L. Parker named it Hymenoxys grandiflora. This web site follows the nomenclature of William Weber and he retains the name Rydbergia grandiflora.