Cota tinctoria

Leaves 1-3(-5) cm, ultimate lobes narrowly oblong to spatulate or linear, ultimate margins entire or serrate (teeth apiculate). Phyl-laries: abaxial faces sericeous to arachnose, margins often ciliolate. Paleae 4-5 mm (including spinose tips). Ray laminae yellow, 6-12+ mm. Disc corollas 3.5-4 mm. Cypselae 1.8-2.2 mm; pappi usually 2-2.5 mm. 2n = 18.

Flowering Jul-Sep. Disturbed sites, fields, roadsides; 10-600+ m; introduced; Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr. (Nfld.), N.S., Ont., Que., Sask.; Alaska, Ark., Calif., Conn., Idaho, Ill., Iowa, Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Mo., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.Dak., Ohio, Oreg., Pa., R.I., S.Dak., Utah, Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis., Wyo.; Europe, Asia.

Short-lived perennial 3-7 dm; stem sparingly branched above or simple, villous-puberulent at least above; lvs pinnatifid, 2-6 cm, with winged rachis and deeply toothed or pinnatifid segments, villous or almost floccose beneath; heads solitary and long-pedunculate at the ends of the branches; disk 12-18 mm wide; invol thinly villous-tomentose; rays 20-30, pistillate and fertile, yellow, 7-15 mm; receptacle chaffy throughout, its bracts narrow, with firm yellow awn-tip equaling the disk-fls; achenes compressed-quadrangular, ±striate-nerved; 2n=18. Fields and waste places; native of Europe, sparingly naturalized in much of our range. June-Sept. (Cota t.)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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