Mason’s Neststraw (Styocline maonii) is a small genus of plants in the daisy family which contains seven species known as neststraw. These are generally small plants and certain species are difficult to distinguish from each other because identifying characteristics are too small to see with the naked eye. They are annuals with woolly, hairy, or spiderwebby textures. Thin stems end in heads of disc flowers or tubular pistillate flowers. The fruits are smooth and shiny and encapsulated within the disc heads. Neststraw is native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico.*
*Courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org