Alternate name: Pale Goat-chicory
Family: Asteraceae, Aster view all from this family
Description Several leafless stalks, each with a yellow flower head at the top, grown from a basal cluster of leaves. Sap milky.
Flowers: head 1/2-1 1/4" (1.3-3.1 cm) wide; flowers all of ray type, those in middle very short.
Leaves: 2-14" (5-35 cm) long, very narrow to broadly lanceolate, broader above middle, without teeth, with a few teeth, or sometimes deeply pinnately divided.
Fruit: seed-like, with fine ridges at tip and fine white hairs on tip of the stalk.
Height: 4-28" (10-70 cm).
Flower May-September.
Habitat Open areas in coniferous forests and in sagebrush.
Range Western Canada; south through the California mountains; east across the West to New Mexico, South Dakota, and Minnesota.
Discussion Several other yellow-flowered species of Agoseris, called False Dandelion or Mountain Dandelion, are distinguished from this one by technical features of the fruit. The true Dandelion (Taraxacum) is also similar, but has minute pegs all over the top of the fruit and usually has bracts curved back beneath the involucre.
