Smooth Hawksbeard
Crepis capillaris (L.) Wallr.
Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)
▲ young plant before flowering
▲▼ mature, flowering plants
▲▼ mature, flowering plants
▲▼ mature, flowering plants
▲ mature, flowering plants
▲ basal leaves
basal leaves on mature plant ▲
▲▼ flowers/inflorescences
▲▼ flowers/inflorescences
▲▼ flowers/inflorescences, along with fruit/seed production
▲▼ flowers/inflorescences, along with fruit/seed production
▲▼ flowers/inflorescences
▲ fruit
▲ fallow field in Wisconsin with many smooth hawksbeard
Crepis capillaris
(L.) Wallr., Smooth Hawksbeard:
(Bayer Code:
CVPCA; US Code CRCA3)
·
European-native biennial or perennial weed that grows 1-2 feet tall and about ˝
as wide
·
First forms a rosette of slightly to deeply-toothed lanceolate leaves
·
One or more flowering stems emerge from rosette and remain unbranched until
flowering commences; flowering stems are ridged and slightly hairy; leaves along
stems are sometimes more deeply lobed, usually smaller than basal leaves, and
are hairless
·
Numerous head inflorescences produced at tips of branches; heads are about 0.5
to 1 inch diameter, with yellow ray flowers (with several notches across the
blunted tip) and no disk flowers
·
Bracts below the inflorescence are linear-lanceolate and have lines of black-glanded
hairs running along their length, and sometimes at the tips of the flowering
stems
·
Achenes (seeds) are brown, ridged lengthwise, with a ring of white hairs at one
end
·
More common in northern Midwest in reduced tillage fields, pastures,
right-of-ways, disturbed sites
·
Similar Bristly Hawksbeard (Crepis setosa)
is almost identical in lifecycle, physical shapes and characteristics to smooth
hawksbeard, except bristly hawksbeard has stiff hairs all over the plant—leaves,
stems, flower bracts, etc., and it is more common in western U.S. and not so
much in the Midwest
·
Flowers of hawksbeard plants may appear similar to those of hawkweed plants (yellow
hawkweed, orange
hawkweed) or
common catsear (Hypochaeris
radicata), but hawkweeds and common catsear often are perennials, lack
leaves along the flowering stems, and have hairy basal leaves that are oval and
smooth-margined, or with a few shallow, rounded lobes