WEEDY DWARF-DANDELION
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Krigia cespitosa   (Raf. ) K. L. Chambers
[=Krigia oppositifolia Raf.]
Morris County, Kansas
Annual
Height: 2-14 inches
Family: Asteraceae – Sunflower Family
Flowering Period:   May, June
Also Called: Common dwarf-dandelion.
Stems: Ascending to erect, branched, glabrous or stipitate-glandular distally.
Leaves: Basal and cauline. Basal leaves petiolate; blade spatulate to linear-oblanceolate, .8 to 6 inches long, .08 to .9 inch wide, margins entire or remotely dentate or few-lobed, surfaces glabrous or sparsely glandular-pubescent. Cauline leaves petiolate or sessile, 1-4, gradually reduced, oblanceolate to linear.
Inflorescences: Heads 1. Peduncles terminal or axillary. Calyculate bractlets 0. Involucres turbinate to campanulate, .08 to .2 inch. Phyllaries 5-10, erect in fruit, ovate or lanceolate, apex acute.
Flowers: Florets 12-35; corolla yellow, .08 to .28 inch long.
Fruits: Achenes brown, obovoid, .05 to .06 inch, glabrous; pappus absent. Seed 1.
Habitat: Tallgrass and sand prairies, glades, clearings in oak-hickory woodlands, especially in moist soil
Distribution: East 1/2 of Kansas
Comments: Our plants belong to the widespread var. cespitosa. Krigia for David Krieg, a German physician who collected plants in Delaware and Maryland and cespitosa, stemless.

Weedy dwarf-dandelion inflorescence
60 KB
Morris County, Kansas
Weedy dwarf-dandelion leaves
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Morris County, Kansas
Weedy dwarf-dandelion
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Morris County, Kansas
Weedy dwarf-dandelion leaves
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Morris County, Kansas