Hypochaeris L.

Annual to perennial taprooted rosette herbs. Hairs simple, eglandular, or 0. Stems usually branching, sometimes scapose. Lvs usually all basal, simple, toothed to pinnatifid; cauline lvs usually reduced to small narrowly triangular bracts, sometimes similar to basal and amplexicaul. Capitula solitary or several per stem, on long peduncles. Involucral bracts in 1-several indistinct series, glabrous or with a few hairs; outer bracts < inner. Receptacle areolate, with long scarious scales, glabrous. Corolla ligulate, yellow, often with pink or green stripe on outer face. Style branches filiform, yellow. Achenes numerous, brownish, obconic to fusiform, ribbed, scabrid, either all beaked or the inner beaked and the outer not beaked; pappus rarely of scales, usually of bristles in (1)–2 rows, sordid or white; the outer bristles short, scabrid to plumose, rarely 0; the inner bristles longer, usually plumose.

[From: Webb et al. (1988) Flora of New Zealand. Volume 4.]