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(updated November 30, 2022) 

Dwarf Dandelion, Weedy Dwarf Dandelion

Krigia caespitosa (Raf.) K. L. Chambers

[also known as Krigia oppositifolia (Raf.) Kuntze.]

Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)

▲▼ mature flowering plants

▲▼ mature flowering plants

▲ closer view of inflorescences

▲ inflorescence buds

▲ closer view of leaf

Krigia caespitosa (Raf.) K.L. Chambers, Dwarf Dandelion, Weedy Dwarf Dandelion; [also known as Krigia oppositifolia (Raf.) Kuntze]:  (Bayer Code:  not known; US Code KRCA)

·         U.S. native annual that grows from a rosette of leaves to produce flowering stems 4-18 inches tall; stems are light-green to tan or pinkish, with few leaves and a few branches in the upper half; both leaves and stems exude milky sap if broken

·         Rosette leaves are lanceolate to spatula-shaped, with pointed tips and smooth or widely-spaced teeth on the margins; leaves usually hairless, with a thin, waxy coating, or sometimes with hairs near the margins; leaves have short or no petioles; the few stem leaves are lanceolate, without petioles, at the base of where a side flowering branch emerges

·         Head inflorescences are borne singly at the tips of moderately-long flowering stalks; individual flower heads are about ½ inch in diameter, with no disk flowers and 5-60 yellow to yellow-orange ray flowers; ray flower (“petal”) tips are rounded to blunt, with 3-5 notches in their tips, and they barely extend past the bracts from below the head

·         Bracts below the inflorescence are in a single row, lanceolate with pointed tips, green, with a visible, but not keeled, midrib; bracts hug base of head and fold upward when seed/fruit matures

·         Fruit/seed does not have any hairs/parachute (pappus) attached when mature

·         Flowering late winter through early autumn

·         Found in lawns, open woods, prairies, pastures, riparian areas, right-of-ways; prefers fertile, moist soils

      ·  Similar species:

    o   Smooth Catsear (Hypochaeris glabra) has similar, but larger yellow flowers, and lacks any stem leaves, plus fruit/seed does have hairs at maturity

    o   Common Catsear (Hypochaeris radicata) has similar, but larger, yellow flowers, and has basal leaves covered with many stiff hairs, and leaves have more rounded lobes

    o   Yellow Hawkweed (Hieracium caespitosum) has hairy flowering stems and basal leaves, with dark black hairs on bracts below inflorescence, plus the flowers are tightly clustered at the tip of an otherwise unbranched flowering stem

    o   Smooth Hawksbeard (Crepis capillaris) has similar, but smaller, yellow flowers, but they are in larger, more open clusters, with much branching in the flowering stems, and mature fruit/seed do have hairs (pappus)

    o   Virginia Dwarf Dandelion (Krigia virginica) differs from weedy dwarf dandelion by having generally leafless, hairless, flowering stems, and often many flowering stems per plant, and the ray flowers extend well beyond the tips of the bracts below the inflorescence

    o   Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) has similar, but larger, flowers, and has dark green to reddish-green, deeply toothed rosette leaves, and the fruit/seed does have hairs at maturity

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