Pyrrhopappus carolinianus, DC. (Sitilias caroliniana, Raf.)

Native. Annual or biennial. Propagates by seeds.

Time of bloom: April to July.

Seed-time: May to August.

Range: Delaware to Missouri, southward to Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. Habitat: Dry soil; fields, pastures, roadsides, and waste places.

Very like a Dandelion in its appearance but for its branched and leafy stems; these are one to nearly three feet tall, slender, and smooth. Basal leaves oblong to lance-shaped, three to eight inches long, coarsely toothed and lobed, sometimes pinnatifid, narrowing to margined petioles; stem leaves more slender, acute, entire, sessile or partly clasping. Heads solitary at summit of stem and branches, nearly two inches broad, with many deep yellow rays; involucre slightly hairy, its outer bracts spreading, awl-like, and short, subtending the linear, erect, and slightly united inner row. Achenes reddish brown, oblong, five-ribbed, narrowed to a thread-like beak, with a showy, copious pappus of soft rust-red hairs, surrounded at its base by a ring of white down. (Fig. 380.)

Fig. 380. -False Dandelion (Pyr-rhopappus carolinianus). X 1/4.

Means Of Control

Prevention of seeding by persistent, frequent cutting. In cultivated ground the necessary tillage destroys the weed.