Taraxacum subhamatum

Taraxacum subhamatum is one of the numerous apomictic microspecies of the Taraxacum officinale aggregate (common dandelion) in the family Asteraceae, a perennial herb of temperate Eurasia. Like other members of the aggregate it forms a basal rosette of leaves arising directly from a stout, deep, often branched taproot that exudes a bitter white latex when cut. The leaves are oblanceolate and runcinate, more or less deeply lobed with backward-pointing teeth, and the precise shape, lobing and curvature of the teeth (here recurved or hook-like) are the fine characters separating the microspecies. Solitary golden-yellow flower heads composed entirely of strap-shaped ray florets are borne on hollow, leafless, latex-filled scapes. After flowering the head closes and reopens as a spherical white pappus, each one-seeded achene bearing a parachute of fine hairs for wind dispersal. It grows in grassland, lawns, roadsides and other open, often disturbed ground.