Hairy Cat's Ear (Hypochaeris radicata) - Survey

Hypochaeris radicata - hairy cat's-ear
Family: Asteraceae

I chose to do a survey of a large grassy area next to my house. Since Taraxacum officinale was already picked, I decided to do its closely related cousin hairy cat's-ear. The field where my survey took place is in Edmonds adjacent to Esperance Park at the end of 223rd SW and 76th.

There is a drainage ditch that runs through the site and could almost be a seasonal creek. The site receives about 6-10 hours of sun a day on the NE half of my transect and approximately 3-5 hours of sun exposure to the SW half of transect. The trees on the south side provide shade.

There are mixed grasses, dandelion, plantain, buttercup, thistle, teasel, and clover that also occupy the transected area. On the west side is a eastern facing slope with Himalayan blackberry.

In totally there were 52 hairy cat's-ears in my transect, which is about 4.33 per survey point. There were noticeably more counted in the NE half of transect with hardly any growing in the SW half.