Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants

Class: Magnoliopsida -- dicots

Order: Asterales

Family: Asteraceae -- sunflower

Common Name: tapertip hawksbeard

Species Code: CRAC2

Origin: Native to dry to moist, open areas of the western US.

Rare: no

Form: forb, perennial from a taproot, 20-70 cm tall, sap milky.

Duration: perennial

Longevity: short

Habitat Type: prairie

Wetland Indicator Status: not listed

Leaves: basal or alternate, tomentose or sometimes glabrate; basal leaves petiolate, 10-40 cm long, pinnately lobed with a wide central rib; lobes entire or occasionally toothed, linear-lanceolate; cauline leaves alternate, reduced, becoming bract-like upward.

Mature height: 8-28 inches

Flowers: numerous; all ligulate and perfect; involucre 8-16 mm high, usually glabrous, outer bracts much shorter than the inner; corolla 10-18 mm long, yellow.

Flower color: yellow

Bloom: May, June

Fruit: achene, 5-9 mm long, yellow or brown, ribbed; pappus of copious capillary bristles, white or off-white, 5-10 mm long.

Characteristics:
Reproduces sexually by seed.
800,000 seeds/lb (USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2009).
Taprooted.
2n=22,33,44,55,88 (Baldwin et al 2004).
Diploids, triploids, tetraploids, pentaploids and octoploids are known.
Part of polyploid apomictic complex (Davis 1953).
Flowers are all ligulate and complete.
Fruit is an achene.
Seeds are windborne.
The Shoshoni of Nevada used the plants medicinally and the Karok of northern California ate the peeled stems (Moerman 2003).
Sheep graze Crepis spp. readily and may eliminate it from range (Craighead et al 1963). Sheep, cattle, and horses graze the plants especially in spring and summer (Stubbendieck et al 1997).

Sun requirement: full sun

Soil moisture: xeric to mesic

Precipitation: 8-20 inches (USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2009)

Sowing time: spring

Transplant time: spring

Stratification: none required

Seed yield: no information available

Seed harvest: medium difficulty

Seed cleaning: medium difficulty due to pappus.

Planting duration: short

Seed insect problem: no information available

Seed shatter: high

Seed size: small

Seed harvest date: no information available

Seed comments: seed is windborne

Herbaria: Specimen data and digital resources from The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria

Key words: forb upland

Propagation:
No pretreatment required (Young & Young 1986).
Should be planted in spring. Seedling vigor is low (Kingery et al 2003).
Reproduces sexually by seed.

Notes: There are several Crepis species locally and any of them should be good plants for dry sites. We haven’t done anything with them yet. Common name is hawksbeard (Skinner et al 2005).

References:
Baldwin, B.G., S. Boyd, B.J. Ertter, D.J. Keil, R.W. Patterson, T.J. Rosatti, and D.H. Wilken (eds). 2004. Jepson Online Interchange for California Floristics. University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley, CA. Accessed 8/6/09 online at http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/interchange.html

Craighead, John J., Frank C. Craighead, and Ray J. Davis. 1963. A Field Guide to Rocky Mountain Wildflowers. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston, MA.

Davis, Ray J. 1952. Flora of Idaho. Wm. C. Brown, Dubuque, Iowa. 827 pp.

Kingery, James, Angela Cotter, and Kendra Moseley. 2003. Idaho Roadside Revegetation Handbook. Prepared for: Idaho Transportation Department. Department of Rangeland Ecology and Management, University of Idaho. Online at http://h237-41.state.id.us/highways/ops/maintenance/Manuals/fullVegetationManual.pdf

Moerman, Dan. 2003. Native American Ethnobotany: a Database of Foods, Drugs, Dyes and Fibers of Native American Peoples, Derived from Plants. University of Michigan-Dearborn. Online at http://herb.umd.umich.edu/ Accessed 1/3/07.

Skinner, David M., Paul Warnick, Bill French, and Mary Fauci. 2005. More Palouse Forbs for Landscaping. USDA NRCS Pullman Plant Materials Center and Palouse Prairie Foundation. Online at http://www.wsu.edu/pmc_nrcs/Docs/More_Forbs_for_Landscaping.pdf

Stubbendieck, James, Stephan L. Hatch, and Charles H. Butterfield. 1997. North American Range Plants. 5th edition. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE. 501 pp.

USDA NRCS. 2009. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 9 August 2009). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

Young, James A., and Cheryl G. Young. 1986. Collecting, Processing and Germinating Seeds of Wildland Plants. Timber Press, Portland, OR.

Links:
Plant Profile from the USDA PLANTS Database
Species description from Flora of North America
Species information from the University of Washington Herbarium