Annuals or perennials, 10–80 cm; fibrous-rooted, sometimes tuberous, or with short caudices. Stems 1–20+, simple and scapiform or sparingly branched, glabrous, tomentulose, or coarsely hirsute. Leaves basal; petiolate (petioles winged); blades oblanceolate, margins entire or dentate or deeply lobed (faces glabrous or hispid, hairs simple or minutely 2–3-fid). Heads borne singly or 2–5 in loose, corymbiform arrays. Peduncles slightly inflated, naked or minutely bracteate. Calyculi of 10–20, subulate to lanceolate bractlets in 1–2 series (unequal), glabrous, tomentulose, or hirsute. Involucres campanulate, 4–15 mm diam. Phyllaries 16–20 in 2+ series, narrowly lanceolate, subequal, glabrous, tomentulose, or hirsute. Receptacles convex, pitted, sometimes slightly villous, epaleate. Florets 20–30; corollas yellow to orange (outer sometimes with reddish or greenish stripes). Cypselae light to dark brown or reddish brown, fusiform or cylindric, curved, distally narrowed and not beaked, or beaked, ribs 10–14, faces muricate, glabrous; pappi of ± distinct, yellowish white, tan, or pale brown bristles in 1–2 series (all uniformly plumose or outer reduced; pappi of outer cypselae sometimes reduced to crowns of bristlelike scales). x = 4, 6, 7.

Distribution

Introduced; Europe, n North Africa, Mediterranean, w Asia.

Discussion

Species ca. 50 (3 in the flora).

Leontodon is recognized by the basal rosettes of pinnatifid leaves, scapiform stems, loosely imbricate phyllaries, yellow corollas, and plumose pappus bristles. Some species are somewhat doubtfully distinguished by an overlapping mixture of vestiture and pappus characters.

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

Leontodon autumnalis, Leontodon hispidus, Leontodon saxatilis

Key

1	Heads (1–)2–5 in corymbiform arrays; peduncles minutely bracteate proximal to heads; pappi wholly of plumose bristles	Leontodon autumnalis
1	Head borne singly on scapiform stems; peduncles usually ebracteate proximal to heads; pappi mixed (either outer series different from inner, or pappi of outer cypselae reduced to crowns of bristlelike scales)	> 2
2	Pappi mixed in all cypselae (outer series of bristlelike scales, inner of plumose bristles); phyllaries densely, coarsely hispid or hirsute	Leontodon hispidus
2	Pappi of 2 types (on outer cypselae, crowns of bristlelike scales; on inner, of plumose bristles); phyllaries glabrate to coarsely hirsute	Leontodon saxatilis