Plants 2-12(-30) cm (longer in fruit); taproots branched. Stems 1-(2-5), erect to ascending, reddish, glabrous. Leaves fewer than 10, usually horizontal, sometimes patent, rarely erect; petioles slightly winged; blades oblanceolate to linear-oblance-olate (sometimes some nearly runcinate), 1.5-8 × 0.2-0.8(-1.3) cm, bases attenuate, margins usually toothed to denticulate in 1-5 pairs or entire, sometimes shallowly lobed, lobes (and teeth) retrorse or straight, triangular, apices acute to obtuse, faces usually glabrous, sometimes very sparsely villous (mostly along midveins). Calyculi of 8-14, appressed to spreading, later reflexed to revolute, sometimes purplish-tinged, broadly ovate or ovate to lance-ovate bractlets in 2-3 series, 3-5 × 1.8-2.5 mm, margins not or barely scarious, apices usually acuminate, sometimes acute, hornless, tips slightly scarious-erose. Involucres dark to blackish green, narrowly campanulate (urceolate when closed), 9-14 mm. Phyllaries 8-12 in 2 series, oblong-lanceolate or broadly lanceolate to lance-ovate (inner), 1.8-3 mm wide, margins not or narrowly scarious (outer) to widely so in proximal ¹/4-¹/2, occasionally purplish, apices sometimes callous, hornless, tips scarious, erose. Florets 35-50; corollas pale yellow (sometimes lemon), sometimes drying pinkish (not striped adaxially), outer abaxially gray to purple striped, 10-12 × 2-3.1 mm. Cypselae dark brown, grayish to blackish, bodies oblanceoloid, flattened, (3-)4-4.5 mm, cones conic, 0.5-0.9 mm, beaks stout, (2-)3-5 (³/4+ length of body), ribs 15 (5 prominent), faces proximally at least tuberculate, muricate ¹/2-³/4+; pappi creamy or white, 4-5.5(-7.5) mm. 2n = 24, 32, 40.

Flowering summer. Slopes to stream banks in tundra, usually dry to drained areas, usually calcareous, rocky taluses, gravel, sand, clay, exposed gravelly-turfy limestone barrens (south); 0-700 m; Greenland; Nfld. and Labr. (Nfld.), N.W.T., Nunavut; Alaska; Eurasia.

A single disjunct population of Taraxacum phymatocarpum was found by M. L. Fernald and colleagues on Burnt Cape, Northern Peninsula, Newfoundland; otherwise the species is arctic. This diminutive species is characterized by its mostly unlobed leaves, pale yellow ligules, and usually dark cypselae.