Smooth Desert Dandelion (Malacothrix glabrata)

(Fig. 01)

Picture Notes: I shot the picture in (Fig. 01) on 03/21/2013 while hiking a wash along Lake Mead’s Southshore Road. The last two pictures (Figs. 02 & 03) were taken on the golf course next to the pool area of our apartment complex.

Description: The Smooth Desert Dandelion (Malacothrix glabrata), a.k.a. Desert Dandelion, is an annual forb that grows in sunny, open, sandy washes and flats. Its dandelion-like flower heads are up to 1 3/4 inches wide and have numerous, slender, strap-shaped, square-tipped, 5-toothed corollas. Young, not fully opened flower heads have a reddish spot in the center. The sparse leaves are green, alternate, mainly basal, and usually pinnately lobed with 3 to 6 or more pairs of long, threadlike lobes. Growing to a height of 16 inches, the stems are ascending to erect, branched, and hairless to sparsely hairy near the base.

(Fig. 02)

(Fig. 03)