Pygmy hawksbeard

Crepis pygmaea, the pygmy hawksbeard, is a low-growing alpine perennial herb in the Asteraceae family, native to the high mountains of southern and central Europe, including the Alps, Pyrenees, Apennines and Balkans, where it inhabits unstable limestone screes, rocky slopes and gravelly debris at elevations typically between 1500 and 3000 metres. The plant develops a long, deeply penetrating taproot anchoring it in shifting substrates, from which arise prostrate to ascending, branching stems just a few centimetres tall, forming small loose mats. The leaves are mostly basal and along the stem, ovate to triangular-cordate or lyrate, 1 to 4 centimetres long, with irregularly toothed to pinnatifid margins and softly hairy or slightly glandular surfaces. The flower heads are solitary or in small clusters at the branch tips, each 1.5 to 2.5 centimetres across with pale yellow to creamy-white ligulate florets that are often tinged pinkish or purplish beneath, surrounded by densely hairy phyllaries. Fruits are slender ribbed achenes bearing a soft white pappus.