Hieracium caesioides

Hieracium caesioides is a perennial hawkweed in the Asteraceae family, belonging to the taxonomically complex Hieracium aggregate of central and western Europe. It is a slender herb 20 to 60 centimetres tall, growing from a short branched rhizome that produces a basal rosette of leaves and one or several flowering stems. Basal leaves are oblanceolate to elliptic, 4 to 12 centimetres long, with shallowly toothed margins, glaucous bluish-green upper surfaces, and pale undersides covered with stellate hairs and longer simple bristles. Stem leaves are few and reduced. The inflorescence is a loose, branched corymb of 3 to 10 capitula; each capitulum is 15 to 22 millimetres across with yellow ligulate florets only and involucral bracts that are dark green with both glandular and simple eglandular hairs. Fruits are small ribbed cypselae topped by a pappus of brittle, off-white bristles. It grows on rocky slopes, cliffs, and grasslands at moderate to subalpine elevations.