62 



Taraxacum erioplioriim Rydb. 



ROCKY MOUNTAIN DANDELION 



Aster Family (Asteraceae) 



CONSERVATION STATUS: 



U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser\'ice: None. 



Bureau of Land Management: Proposed sensitive on the draft list that was circulated 

 in 1995. 



Montana Natural Heritage Program rank: G4 SI. 



DESCRIPTION: Rocky Mountain dandelion is a stemless, herbaceous perennial with erect to 

 ascending, glabrous, or sparsely hairy flower stalks up to 3 dm (12 in.) tall when mature. The 

 basally-disposed, tongue-shaped leaves, 6-20 cm (2-8 in.) long, are glabrous and have wavy 

 margins and broadly-winged petioles. The sap is milky. Solitary, terminal flower heads are 

 borne on 1 to many leafless stalks. Each head has 2 series of erect, lance-shaped involucral 

 bracts; the inner, 15-25 m high, are much longer than the outer. The ray flowers are yellow, and 

 disk flowers are absent. The reddish, 4-angled, narrowly elliptic seeds (achenes) are 3-4 mm long 

 and have a slender beak, 2-4 times as long, surmounted by numerous long, spreading, white 

 bristles (pappus). 



Rocky Mountain dandelion can be distinguished from the two exotic species by the erect rather 

 than refle.xed outer involucral bracts (Figure 26; Appendix D-26, D-27). It is distinguished from 

 other native dandelions by the reddish, distinctly 4-angled achenes. A hand lens may be 

 necessary to identify this plant. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



Global distribution: Hitchcock and Cronquist (1973) describe the distribution as 

 "cordilleran," referring to the mountains of western North America. The species is 

 infrequent and widely scattered on tundra in Colorado (Weber 1987) and occurs mostly in 

 the mountains in Wyoming (Dom 1992). 



Montana distribution: Southwestern Beaverhead County (four collections) and one 

 historic collection that cannot be mapped from the Tobacco Root Mountains in Madison 

 County (Figure 27). 



Grasshopper distribution: It was found only in one area of Henneberry Ridge (Eli 

 Spring; Figure 27). This wetland is located entirely on BLM lands as sho\\Ti in the 1993 

 Interagency Visit Map for southwestern Montana, but was shov^Ti to occur on private 

 lands in the previous 1990 map. 



