[Crepis molokaiensis H. Lev.]
(nat) Hairy cat’s ear, gosmore
Fibrous-rooted perennial herbs 1.5-6 dm tall; stems usually branched or unbranched in small plants, usually hispid. Leaves oblanceolate, 3-35 cm long, 0.5-7 cm wide, usually densely hispid, toothed or pinnatifid. Involucre 10-15 mm high at anthesis, enlarging up to ca. 26 mm high in fruit; rays conspicuously exceeding the involucre. Achenes all with a long slender beak, some-times the outermost short-beaked. [2n = 8, 28.] Native to Eurasia; in Hawai‘i naturalized and often common, usually in wet but also relatively dry, disturbed sites, 1,100-2800m, on all of the main islands except Ni‘ihau and 0‘ahu. The earliest collection we have seen was made on Maui in 1909 (Brigham et al. s.n., BISH); however, Heller (1897) cites a Kaua‘i collection (Heller 2835) made in 1896.—Plate 29