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(updated November 30, 2022) 

Virginia Dwarf Dandelion

Krigia virginiana

Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)

▲▼ mature flowering plants

▲▼ mature flowering plants

▲inflorescence bud

▲closer view of inflorescence

▲▼ flowering stems and basal leaves

Krigia virginica (L.) Willd., Virginia Dwarf Dandelion:  (Bayer Code:  KRIVI; US Code KRVI)

·         U.S. native annual with taproots that produces flowering stems that are 2-12 inches tall, green to pinkish-green, ridged with no hairs or a few glandular hairs; hairs most common at tip of flowering stem, beneath flower head; both leaves and stems exude milky sap if broken

·         Produces a rosette of usually hairless (sometimes with some glandular hairs) spatula-shaped to oblanceolate leaves that have shallow or deep, linear lobs with pointed tips, or sometimes smooth margins; base of leaf tapers to a winged petiole-like structure; each rosette produces one to many, generally leafless flowering stems

·         Head inflorescences are 0.75 to 1.5 inches in diameter, borne singly at the tip of flowering stems; individual heads have 8-35 yellow to yellow-orange ray flowers (“petals”) that sometimes have a purplish base, and no disk flowers; ray flower (“petal”) tips are rounded to blunt, with 3-5 notches in their tips

·         Bracts below the inflorescence are two rows, but in two lengths, lanceolate with pointed tips, green; bracts hug base of head, but tips bend slightly outward when seed/fruit matures; ray flowers extend well beyond the tips of the bracts below the inflorescence

·         Flowering is from early spring through late summer

·         After flowering the florets from the head become a loose globe-shape of white hairs from the pappus (parachute-like hairs) attached to small, red-brown, wedge-shaped mature seed/fruit (achenes)

·         Found in open woods, lawns, pastures, prairies, right of ways, non-crop areas, rocky and sandy 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   Weedy Dwarf Dandelion (Krigia cespitosa) differs from Virginia dwarf dandelion by having one or two leaves on the flowering stems below the flower heads, instead of hairless flowering stems, and the ray flower tips barely extend beyond 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