Appearance

Appearance

Each yellow head is made of many small strap-shaped flowers. The outer green bracts usually point upward and have small hornlike bumps near their tips.

Growth form

The leaves form a ground-hugging rosette, and each unbranched flower stalk carries one flower head.

Leaves

The long leaves are toothed or deeply lobed, but their exact outline varies.

Flowers

A flower head is about 1.6 in (4 cm) wide.

Fruit

Each small, dry fruit has a tuft of pale hairs that helps it travel on the wind.

Look-alikes

common dandelionTaraxacum officinale

Common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) often has outer green bracts that bend downward. Korean Dandelion has outer bracts held close to the flower head, with small hornlike tips. Hybrids can blur this difference.

Why they get mixed up · Both have low leaf rosettes, yellow flower heads, and round white seed heads.

Where it lives

Typical habitats

• sunny banks in Japan
• field edges in Japan
• open grassland in Japan

Range

Its range includes Honshu, Japan. Whether it is native to Korea is uncertain. It is not native to the United States.

Preferred conditions

In Japan, this perennial grows in open, sunny places. A thick taproot anchors a low rosette of leaves.

Life cycle

Reproduction

Japanese Kanto Dandelion populations reproduce sexually and depend on insects to move pollen between flowers.

Seed dispersal

The hair tuft works like a tiny parachute and carries the fruit on the wind.

Name and classification

About the name

Older Korean sources sometimes placed Taraxacum mongolicum within this species.

Conservation

IUCN Red List

NENot Evaluated·Not yet assessed