Winter annual, with erect, openly branched flowering stems to 0.6(1) m tall at maturity. Most germination occurs after the first significant rains of fall/early winter, but germination can continue throughout the rainy season. Fall germinating plants exist as basal rosettes until flowering stems bolt in spring. Rosette leaves whither as flowering commences in late spring/early summer. Plants adapt to many environmental conditions, are highly competitive for water and nutrients, and often produces solid stands. Introduced from southern Europe

SEEDLINGS: Cotyledons oblong, 1-2.5 cm long, and fleshy. Midvein and margins often purplish-red.First rosette leaves entire with toothed margins. Subsequent leaves increasingly lobed.

MATURE PLANT :Rosette leaves oblong to obovate, to 8 cm long, sessile or petioled, covered with short stiff hairs, and deeply once-pinnately divided with lobes narrow and opposing. Stem leaves alternate, reduced near stem tops, and pinnately (sometimes bipinnately) divided with narrow lobing. Rosette and stem leaf margins appear spiny-toothed with stiff hairs barbed at the tips (glochidiate). Stems longitudinally ridged.

ROOTS :Dense,fibrous roots.

FLOWERS: June until soil moisture is depleted. Flower heads on stalks 1-3 cm long, consist of 1-2 central fertile disc flowers and 2-4 outer sterile disc flowers. Corollas are slender purple tubes with linear lobes, together ~ 14 mm long. Phyllaries lanceolate, in several overlapping series, and as a unit, 8-20 mm long and slender urn-shaped. Receptacle with flattened, scale-like chaffy bracts.

FRUITS and SEEDS :Fertile achene nearly cylindric, 3-6 mm long, 1.5-3.5 mm wide, base rounded, appex +/- fat-topped, black-brown, +/- covered with minute, lustrous golden-brown scales that rub off easily. Pappus bristles black-brown, glossy, stiff, radiate outwards at a 90º angle from the achene axis in 2 unequal series. Outer bristles inconspicuous, scale-like, flattened, to ~ 1 mm long. Inner bristles stiff, minutely barbed, to ~ 10 mm long. Above the bristles is a +/- erect crown of flattened scales ~ 1 mm long.

HABITAT :Grassy sites, rangelands, forested areas, and roadsides. Adaptable to many moisture and temperature regimes and soil tupes.

Integrated management:Integrated management is very important for improving the quality of infested areas. Eradication of crupina on poor areas without revegetation strategies will likely result in colonization of the area by other invasive annuals, such as downy brome (Bromus tectorum). Therefore, reseeding perennial grasses in the fall or spring is important for the long term health and productivity of the land.