Smallflower Hawksbeard

Crepis pulchra is identified by its annual habit; solitary, erect, glandular, and viscid stems; narrowly oblanceolate, runcinate, hispid leaves with relatively large terminal segments; glabrous and strongly keeled phyllaries; sometimes dimorphic cypselae; and fluffy, dusky white pappi.

Annuals, 5–100 cm (taproots slender). Stems 1, erect, simple, proximally hispid and stipitate-glandular (viscid), distally gla­brous. Leaves basal and cauline; petiolate; blades oblanceolate or runcinate, 1–24 × 1–5 cm, (bases attenuate) margins deeply pinnately lobed to denticulate (lobes triangular, terminal lobes largest), apices obtuse to acute, faces densely stipitate-glandular (viscid). Heads 10–40, in loose, corymbiform arrays. Calyculi of 5–7, ovate or lanceolate, glabrous bractlets 1–2 mm. Involucres cylindric (turbinate in fruit), 8–12 × 3–5 mm. Phyllaries 10–14, (green medially) lanceolate, 8–10 mm, (bases strongly keeled and thickened, margins scarious), apices acute, faces glabrous. Florets 15–30; corollas light yellow, 5–12 mm. Cypselae (monomorphic or dimorphic) green to yellowish brown, subcylindric, outer 5–6 mm, inner 4–5 mm, apices attenuate (not beaked), ribs 10–12; pappi dusky white (very fine, fluffy), 4–5 mm. 2n = 8.

Crepis pulchra is a European species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae with the common name smallflower hawksbeard. It is widespread across much of Europe as well as in Morocco, Algeria, and western and central Asia. It has also become naturalized in the parts of the United States and in the Canadian Province of Ontario.

Crepis pulchra is an annual herb up to 100 cm (40 inches) tall. One plant can produce as many as 40 flower heads, each with as many as 30 yellow ray florets but no disc florets.

Subspecies Crepis pulchra subsp. pulchra Crepis pulchra subsp. turkestanica Babc.