Smooth Hawksbeard
Smooth Hawksbeard
Crepis capillaris (L.) Wallr.
Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)
▲ young plant before flowering
▲ ▼ mature, flowering plants
▲ ▼ mature, flowering plants
▲ ▼ mature, flowering plants
▲ mature, flowering plants
▲ basal leaves
basal leaves on mature plant ▲
▲ ▼ flowers/inflorescences
▲ ▼ flowers/inflorescences
▲ ▼ flowers/inflorescences, along with fruit/seed production
▲ ▼ flowers/inflorescences, along with fruit/seed production
▲ ▼ flowers/inflorescences
▲ fruit
▲ fallow field in Wisconsin with many smooth hawksbeard
Crepis capillaris (L.) Wallr., Smooth Hawksbeard: (Bayer Code: CVPCA; US Code CRCA3)
- European-native biennial or perennial weed that grows 1-2 feet tall and about 1/2 as wide
- First forms a rosette of slightly to deeply-toothed lanceolate leaves
- One or more flowering stems emerge from rosette and remain unbranched until flowering commences; flowering stems are ridged and slightly hairy; leaves along stems are sometimes more deeply lobed, usually smaller than basal leaves, and are hairless
- Numerous head inflorescences produced at tips of branches; heads are about 0.5 to 1 inch diameter, with yellow ray flowers (with several notches across the blunted tip) and no disk flowers
- Bracts below the inflorescence are linear-lanceolate and have lines of black-glanded hairs running along their length, and sometimes at the tips of the flowering stems
- Achenes (seeds) are brown, ridged lengthwise, with a ring of white hairs at one end
- More common in northern Midwest in reduced tillage fields, pastures, right-of-ways, disturbed sites
- Similar Bristly Hawksbeard (Crepis setosa) is almost identical in lifecycle, physical shapes and characteristics to smooth hawksbeard, except bristly hawksbeard has stiff hairs all over the plant--leaves, stems, flower bracts, etc., and it is more common in western U.S. and not so much in the Midwest
- Flowers of hawksbeard plants may appear similar to those of hawkweed plants (yellow hawkweed, orange hawkweed) or common catsear (Hypochaeris radicata), but hawkweeds and common catsear often are perennials, lack leaves along the flowering stems, and have hairy basal leaves that are oval and smooth-margined, or with a few shallow, rounded lobes