Hedypnois cretica

Hedypnois cretica, the Cretan weed or scaly hawkbit, is a small annual herb in the Asteraceae native to dry, open, disturbed habitats, fallow fields, roadsides, and coastal slopes throughout the Mediterranean basin, naturalized in California, Australia, and parts of South America. Plants grow 5 to 40 cm tall, with one to several slender, branched, hispid stems arising from a basal rosette. The leaves are pinnatifid to lyrate-pinnatifid, 3 to 10 cm long, with toothed lobes and a rough, bristly surface; the basal leaves form the densest tuft while stem leaves are smaller and clasping. Solitary heads or small corymbs of yellow ligulate flowerheads, 1 to 2 cm across, terminate the branches; each head is enclosed by an involucre of stiff, scarious-margined bracts that curve inward and harden in fruit to form a hard, urn-shaped structure enclosing the achenes. Achenes are dimorphic — outer ones crowned with a short toothed crown, inner ones with a pappus of plumose scales.