Sub-Genus Pilosella Fries. Hieracium Aurantiacum L. (Plate XIX)

Rootstock with creeping underground stolons and putting up barren tufts of leaves as well as flower-stems. Stem erect, scapelike, very rough with stellate and long simple hairs, bearing from 1-3 leaves on the lower part, and terminating in from 2 to many capitula arranged in a dense umbel, and rarely only one capitulum. Leaves grass-green, ovate or linear-lanceolate, entire, acute or obtuse, sessile or narrowed into a foot-stalk, more or less rough with long, simple but not stellate hairs. Stalk of capitula and involucres densely covered with stellate hairs, black glandular bristles, and long black hairs. Flowers a beautiful orange-red, sometimes almost crimson.

Rough Alpine pastures and steep, bushy places up to 7200 feet. June, July.

Distribution

Carpathians, Eastern, Central, and Western Alps, Erzgebirge, Black Forest, Vosges, Jura. Northern Europe as far as Norway. Sometimes naturalized in Britain; and frequently seen in cottage-gardens. It seeds very freely.

Hieracium Pilosella L. Mouse-Ear Hawkweed

A small and variable species, with spreading tufts of root-leaves and creeping, leafy, barren shoots. Leaves lanceolate, entire, tapering at the base, and often stalked, green above, hairy, white beneath, with short stellate hairs. Peduncles radical, with a single head of lemon-coloured flowers, sometimes tinged with red on the outside. Involucres more or less covered with close, whitish down and stiff, spreading black hairs. Achenes rather short.

Dry pastures and banks from the plains up to 8200 feet. May to July.

Distribution

Europe and Russian Asia. Common in Britain. Very variable in Southern Europe and the Alps.

Sub-Genus Stenotheca Fries Hieracium Staticifolium VILL. (Plate XV)

Glaucous and glabrous or sometimes somewhat hairy. Stem simple or slightly branched, usually leafless, with a few bracts at the top. Leaves radical, linear-lanceolate or linear, entire or slightly toothed, attenuated into a foot-stalk, glabrous and glaucous. Capitula 1-3, but usually solitary, large. Flowers pale yellow, turning green on being dried. In vomeral bracts' mealy, linear-acute.

Moraines and sandy river beds and high stony pastures up to 8000 feet. June to September.

Distribution

Eastern, Central, and Western Alps, Jura, Provence.

Sub-Genus Euhieracium Torr. Et Gray. Hieracium Glaucum All. (H. Porrifolium VILL. Non L)

Closely resembling the last, with which it has sometimes been confused. Glabrous and glaucous. Stem erect, 10-18 inches high, leafy, loosely paniculate. Stalk of capitula with small scaly bracts above, and like the involucre, nearly glabrous or greyish, with a fine mealy down. Involucral bracts obtuse, adpressed. Leaves rather thick, very narrow, bluish green, linear-lanceolate, sessile, entire or slightly toothed. Flowers yellow. Capitula usually solitary.

Sandy Alpine and sub-alpine valleys, among debris and boulders, especially in river beds. July, August.

Distribution

Eastern, Central, and Western Alps.