Golden hawk's-beard

Crepis aurea, golden hawk's-beard, is a small rosette-forming perennial herb in the family Asteraceae native to the mountains of central and southern Europe, particularly the Alps, Apennines, Carpathians, and Balkans, where it is a characteristic species of subalpine and alpine pastures, short turf, and damp meadow flushes between roughly 1,400 and 2,800 m elevation. Plants grow 5–25 cm tall, exuding a milky white latex when cut. A flat rosette of basal leaves spreads at ground level; these leaves are obovate to oblanceolate, 3–8 cm long, glabrous, with shallowly to deeply runcinate-pinnatifid lobes pointing downward, and a slightly fleshy texture. The leafless or sparsely bracteate flowering stem bears a single, terminal, showy head 2–4 cm across composed entirely of ligulate ray florets that range from rich golden orange-yellow to almost coppery red, often darker on the underside of the rays. The involucre is conspicuously black-hairy. The fruit is a small ribbed achene topped with a soft white pappus dispersed by wind.