Leontodon taraxacoides (lesser hawkbit, "Kawarimitanpopomodoki")

Japanese name: カワリミタンポポモドキ
Scientific name: Leontodon taraxacoides

[Overview]
A perennial 25–35 cm tall, found in developed land and vacant lots in urban areas.
The leaves are simple and basal, oblanceolate, 3–16 cm long and 0.5–3.5 cm wide, with shallowly pinnately lobed margins.
The leaf base gradually narrows into a leaf-stalk-like form.
Both sides of the leaves are densely covered with stiff bristles 0.5–1.5 mm long, whose tips branch into 2–3.
A flower stalk sparsely covered with stiff bristles is sent up, bearing a single deep yellow flower 2.5–3 cm across.
The back of the ray florets is gray to purplish.
The outer involucral bracts are in 1–2 rows and markedly shorter than the inner ones; the inner bracts are in 1 row, and both inner and outer bracts are densely covered with stiff bristles near the midrib on the back.
The fruit is an achene 4–5.5 mm long; the inner ones are beak-like and pointed at the tip, with many ridges and scale-like projections along them, and have a pappus 6 mm long, whereas the achenes of the outer row are not beak-like, have indistinct ridges, and have a pappus only 0.5 mm long.

[History]
A specimen was collected in Hachioji, Tokyo in 1970, and it has since been reported from Tokyo, Kanagawa, Hyogo, Okayama, Okinawa and elsewhere.

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