Virginia dwarf-dandelion

Krigia virginica (L.) Willd. (Asteraceae), Virginia dwarf-dandelion, is a small, slender winter annual herb of the eastern and central United States, ranging widely from southern Maine and Ontario west to Minnesota, Nebraska and eastern Texas and south to Florida. Plants overwinter as a basal rosette of oblanceolate to spatulate leaves 2-7 cm long with shallowly toothed, lobed or pinnatifid margins, often tinged with reddish-purple. From the rosette one to several leafless wiry scapes 5-25 cm tall arise in spring, branching only at the very base and bearing a single small terminal head 8-15 mm across composed entirely of bright yellow strap-shaped ligulate florets. The involucre consists of a single row of slender green phyllaries 5-7 mm long that reflex sharply as the fruits mature. Achenes are short, columnar and ribbed, bearing a pappus of about five short outer scales and five longer barbed inner bristles. It favours dry sandy or gravelly open ground, sterile fields, rock outcrops and roadsides.