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These photos were stimulated by the conversation in this observation:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/88441502

about whether our San Jacinto plants were E. tilingii or E. corallina.

This plant was at the edge of Reeds Meadow.

Taking what I could see in my photographs, and comparing them to the Jepson eFlora and FNA treatments, this plant has five characteristics that fit E. tilingii better:

• the mostly glabrous stem fits the "glabrous or sparsely stipitate to short glandular-villous" stem of E. tilingii better than the "moderately hirsute to hirtellous" stem of E. corallina. There are some downward-pointing hairs, fitting the "deflexed" hairs of E. corallina, but there is no corresponding description of the hair aspect for E. tilingii.
• the translucent leaf hairs fits the "thick-vitreous, eglandular" hairs of E. tilingii, and not the "dull gray" leaf hairs of E. corallina.
• the clear dentate teeth on the leaf blades fit the "irregularly denticulate" teeth of E. tilingii better than the "generally crenate" leaf edge of E. corallina.
• the wedge-shaped leaf base fits the "cuneate to attenuate" leaf base of E. tilingii, and not the "truncate to shallowly cordate" base of E. corallina
• the stalked glandular hairs on the calyx fit only the "glabrous or sparsely stipitate-glandular to short glandular-villous" hairs of E. tilingii, and not the "glabrous" calyx of E. corallina (caveat: those descriptions were for the "fruiting calyx", and my pix show a flowering calyx).

The glandular hairs on the leaf margins fit neither species.

Here's a summary of what I see in my photographs in this observation:

• pedicel stalked glandular, mostly in lower part
• calyx stalked glandular in flower
• leaf widely elliptic, strongly toothed, almost lobed. 5 veined from base. base wedge-shaped, angle ~90 deg. tip rounded. blade hairs translucent, tapered to tip, stalked glandular toward edge of blade.
• stem mostly glabrous, with some retrorse hairs at base of each node.

This was the only A.p. desertica we found on a survey of the Cedar Spring Trail and the PCT north of it. We found it at our turn-around point, so there may be more plants of this taxon farther north.

The first pix shows the glabrescent ovary of this taxon, very different from the many hairy ovaries of A. glandulosa on the plants farther down. The numerous leaf-like bracts in the infl are also very different from the ones in the previously-seen A. glandulosa.