DWARF FALSE DANDELION 



Krigia biflora (Walt.) Blake 



May - June Dwarf false dandelion is a neat, smooth, compact little 

 Rocky ravines plant with little of the weedy quality which the common 

 dandelion often has, Krigia, in fact, is not in the dan- 

 delion family, even though it is a Composite, but is more closely related 

 to chickory and hawkbit. 



In a rocky glen below a plowed field, a place where stones cling to 

 the slopes or move downward through the annual activity of Avater and 

 wind and freezing and thawing, the taproots of dwarf false dandelion go 

 deeply into the soil in search of food and water. The leaves are mostly 

 basal, smooth, tapered, light blue-gi*een with a pinkish midrib. Often on a 

 flower stem there is a clasping or almost perfoliate leaf a few inches 

 above the base, but most of the slim, smooth flower stems are without 

 leaves. The stems curve, wave in the summer wind that blows down the 

 stony ravine. In the blaze of sunshine they stand tall with a single flower, 

 or two or three, seldom m_ore. 



The flowers are an inch broad with rectangular yellow rays and a 

 tufted center of staminate and pistillate flowers. It is a delicate blossom 

 on a delicate stem, a plant which seems more at home in shady woods 

 than out there on the stony slopes in the full heat of the June sunshine. 



The Carolina dwarf daudelion {Krigia virginiai) is shorter than 

 the above and grows as an annual plant on open sandy fields, principally 

 along the larger rivers. It has a small rosette similar to the common dan- 

 delion, from which spring several slonder stems, each of which bears a 

 head of yellow strap-shaped flowers. 



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