Perennials, 5-30(-50) cm (rhizomes fibrous-rooted, creeping; plants forming extensive colonies). Stems usually 1, erect (scapiform, not branched). Leaves basal and cauline (basal usually developing after flowers); alternate; petiolate (petiole lengths 1-2 times blades) or sessile; blades (basal) palmately nerved, orbiculate to polygonal or lobed (cauline leaves lance-ovate to linear, bractlike or scale-like), margins denticulate, abaxial faces gray-tomentose, adaxial tomentulose, glabrescent. Heads (erect at flowering, nodding in fruit) radiate, borne singly. Calyculi 0 (or indistinct, bractlets intergrading with bractlike cauline leaves). Involucres cylindric to subturbinate, 10-15 mm diam. (larger in fruit). Phyllaries persistent, usually ± 21 in (1-)2 series, erect, distinct, lance-linear to linear, subequal, margins scarious (apices greenish or yellow-green). Receptacles convex, foveolate (socket margins ± membranous), epaleate. Ray florets 100-200(-300+), pistillate, fertile; corollas yellow (drying pinkish). Disc florets (20-)30-40, functionally staminate; corollas yellowish, tubes longer than campanulate throats, lobes 5, erect, linear; styles not divided. Cypselae narrowly cylindric or ± prismatic, 5(-10)-ribbed, glabrous; pappi readily falling or fragile, of 60-100+, white, barbellulate or smooth bristles. x = 30.
Heads radiate, the rays yellow, pistillate and fertile, numerous in several series; invol a single series of equal, ±herbaceous bracts, sometimes with a few basal bracteoles; receptacle flat, naked; central fls sterile, with undivided, merely lobed style; anthers entire or minutely sagittate; achenes linear, 5-10-ribbed; pappus of numerous capillary bristles, that of the sterile fls ±reduced; perennial herb with large basal lvs, scaly- bracted stems (the bracts alternate), and medium-sized solitary heads, blooming before the basal lvs develop. Monospecific.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
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