Crepis modocensis is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common name Modoc hawksbeard.
It is native to western North America (British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado), where it grows in several types of mountain and plateau habitat, including sagebrush.[1] [2] It typically prefers rocky soil.[3]
The species name is from the Modoc Plateau, in the northeast California range.
Crepis modocensis is a perennial herb growing an erect stem up to 45 centimeters (18 inches) tall and often lined with long bristles. The woolly and sometimes bristly leaves are dark-veined and edged with blunt and sharp lobes. The longest leaves at the base of the plant reach about 25 centimeters (10 inches) long.
The inflorescence bears one to ten flower heads about 5cm (02inches) in diameter with rough or bristly phyllaries and up to 60 yellow ray florets but no disc florets.
The fruit is an achene around a centimeter long which is black, sometimes green or red tinted, and sports a tufty white pappus.[4]
C. modocensis may have hybridized with Crepis atribarba to produce Crepis barbigera, the head size of which is intermediate between its prospective parent species.
