This highly variable species has flower heads densely packed with yellow, petal-like ray florets with flat tips with tiny teeth. Note the solitary flowers grow on hollow, leafless stalks (peduncles) 4–24 inches tall from a cluster of erect to spreading basal leaves, and the sap is milky. The flowers and feathery seed heads resemble a dandelion.

FLOWER: April–August. Solitary flowers on peduncles, hairy or not, from a basal cluster of leaves. Flower heads 1–2 inches wide (25–50 mm), dense with up to 150 yellow rays (no disk florets); stamens radiate from center; phyllaries beneath the head overlap with 2–3 rows, often with a rosy median line and spots or speckles, and usually are not hairy. Seeds in a feathery, dandelion-like head.

LEAVES: Basal. Blades erect to decumbent, narrow to lance-shaped, pointed, 1–18 inches long (2–46 cm); margins usually entire, often undulate, sometimes lobed; blades usually glabrous and glaucous (var. glauca), or matted with woolly hairs (var. dasycephala).

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly, silty alluvial soils; foothills, mountain meadows, slopes, open understory, streambeds, plains, roadsides; grasslands, steppes, ponderosa-oak, Douglas fir-spruce forests, alpine meadows.

ELEVATION: 5,400–11,400 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CA, CO, ID, MN, MT, ND, NM, NV, OR, SD, UT, WA, WY.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Two varieties, both occur in NM. A. var. glauca tends to have mostly hairless leaves, flower stalks (peduncles), and phyllaries, and occurs at lower elevations; A. var. dasycephala tends to have densely hairy leaves, peduncles, and phyllaries, and occurs at higher elevations; the characteristics are variable and the species forms hybrids with other species. False Dandelion, A. parviflora, in much the same range but favoring foothills and lower elevations, has leaves and phyllaries usually hairy, leaves usually with mostly backward-pointing lobes, and flower stalks 4–8 inches tall.

NM COUNTIES: Widespread in NM foothills and mountains in mid- to high-elevation habitats: Catron, Cibola, Colfax, Grant, Lincoln, Los Alamos, McKinley, Mora, Otero, Rio Arriba, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Socorro, Taos, Torrance, Union, Valencia.