General: Annual herb from a short taproot; stems erect, solitary, branched, glabrous or hairy, 0.3-1.0 m tall.
Leaves: Basal leaves lanceolate or oblanceolate, 2-15 cm long, 0.3-4 cm wide entire to toothed or pinnately parted, abruptly sharp-pointed, short stalked, glabrous or short-hairy, often soon deciduous; stem leaves unstalked, clasping, mostly linear or nearly so, often involute.
Flowers: Heads with strap-shaped flowers several to numerous, in a flat-topped inflorescence; involucres 6-9 mm tall, cylindric to bell-shaped; involucral bracts short woolly-hairy and sometimes stiff glandular-hairy, the outer ones about 12, awl-like, about a third as long as the 12-15 inner ones, these lanceolate, with long-pointed tips, becoming keeled and thickened near the base, appressed- or short-hairy within; receptacles very finely-fringed with small hairs; ray flowers yellow, up to 13 mm long.
Fruits: Achenes purplish-brown, 2.5-4.5 mm long, spindle-shaped, rather strongly tapering to a slender tip, scarcely beaked, 10-ribbed, ribs rough short-hairy; pappus white, of fine, hairlike bristles, deciduous.
Roadsides and disturbed areas in the lowland, steppe and montane zones; frequent throughout BC, except NW BC and the Queen Charlotte Islands; introduced from Europe.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
