General:
Annual herbs from a short taproot; stems erect, solitary, few-branched above, glabrous, hollow, exuding milky juice when broken, 0.1-1 m tall.

Leaves:
Basal leaves lacking; stem leaves alternate, weakly or scarcely prickly-margined, lowermost stalked, backward-swept pinnately cut to occasionally merely toothed, 6-30 cm long, 1-15 cm wide, uppermost lobed with sharply pointed ear-lke lobes.

Flowers:
Heads with strap-shaped flowers, several on sometimes glandular stalks in an open, flat- or round-topped inflorescence, relatively small, commonly 1.5-2.3 cm wide in flower; involucres 9-14 mm tall; involucral bracts lanceolate, tapering to a slender tip at the apex, glabrous except for some spreading, gland-tipped hairs; ray flowers yellow.

Fruits:
Achenes 2.5-3 mm long, with 3-5 evident to rather obscure longitudinal ribs on each face, cross-wrinkled; pappus of white hairlike bristles.

Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

If more than one illustration is available for a species (e.g., separate illustrations were provided for two subspecies) then links to the separate images will be provided below. Note that individual subspecies or varietal illustrations are not always available.

Illustration Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia