Plants (1–)6–50 cm; taproots branched. Stems 1–10+, ascending to erect, ± purplish (at least proximally), densely villous (young) becoming glabrescent, sparsely villous to glabrate or glabrous proximally, ± densely villous distally. Leaves ± 10, horizontal to patent, sometimes erect; sessile or petioles ± broadly winged (bases barely narrowed compared to blades); blades narrowly oblanceolate to linear-oblanceolate or linear-oblong (often ± runcinate), 4–30 × (0.4–)0.5–5 cm, bases cuneate to attenuate, margins lobed ± deeply to lacerate, irregularly to regularly, often toothed, merely denticulate, or subentire, lobes retrorse, straight or antrorse, deltate to triangular, acute to acuminate, teeth 0–1 on lobes, often more or mostly in sinuses, apices obtuse to sometimes acute, sometimes mucronate, faces glabrous or glabrate to very sparsely villous. Calyculi of 12–16(–20), appressed to spreading, pale, ovate to elliptic or lance-ovate to lanceolate (sometimes thin) bractlets in 2–3 series, 5–12 × (0.9–)1.5–5 mm, margins hyaline, white or purplish, scarious, apices caudate to acuminate, ± strongly horned, callous, or occasionally some (rarely all) hornless, tips obtuse to rounded, scarious, erose. Involucres dark green, sometimes ± glaucous, campanulate to ± hemispheric, (5–)8–19(–21) mm. Phyllaries (10–)12–14(–17) in 2 series, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate (inner), 1.5–4.5 mm wide, margins scarious or not (outer), inner broadly scarious in proximal 1/2, apices usually horned, occasionally hornless, horns sometimes exceeding apices, tips white to purplish, scarious, erose. Florets 40–85+; corollas yellow, drying cream to whitish (outer abaxially gray or purple-striped on drying), 10–22 × 1–2.8 mm. Cypselae olivaceous to olive brown, tan to olivaceous tan, brown to reddish brown, grayish brown or straw-colored, bodies oblanceoloid to obovoid, 2.5–4(–5) mm wide, cones conic or narrowly conic to broadly terete, 0.5–0.9 mm, beaks slender, 4.5–14 mm, ribs 5, large (bearing 10–15 narrower ones), faces proximally tuberculate or sometimes nearly smooth (usually with at least some tubercules) to muricate in distal 1/3–1/2, sometimes wholly muricate; pappi white to cream, 5–7.5(–8) mm. 2n = 16, [24], 32, 40, 48.
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Similar to no. 3 [Taraxacum officinale F. H. Wigg], avg a little less robust; scape arising laterally, not terminal (unique among our spp.) lvs with a broadly winged petiolar base, often less lobed, commonly glabrous or nearly so; heads sometimes a little smaller; invol bracts, at least the inner, commonly corniculate, the outer appressed to loosely spreading, from much shorter than to nearly as long as the inner, and often wider; 2n=16, 32. Meadows and other moist places in the mts.; circumboreal, s. at high altitudes to N.H., Mass., and N.M. July, Aug. (T. lapponicum; T. latilobum, misapplied)
A small plant with a fleshy rootstock. The leaves and flowering stem arise from this. The leaves are sword shaped and deeply toothed. The flowers are yellow on hollow stems. The seed heads are round. The parachute like seeds blow in the wind.
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