False Dandelion

Almost exactly a month ago, as I was heading to get some lunch, I saw this flower near the library buildings and had to photograph it. As you can see, it looked a lot like a dandelion, but it's more of a lemon yellow instead of the warmer, almost buttery, yellow of dandelions.

It was also much taller, 2 to 2 1/2 feet tall.

Just a few days ago, I noticed that the plant had set seed, so I needed to photograph it again.

Just an hour after I photographed it, I left the office to go to a meeting and I noticed that most of the seeds had already blown away. That night, my Most Faithful Reader suggested that I might want to collect some seeds, if there were any left. They've been working on the landscaping in that area recently and the next day I saw that someone had pulled up the plant completely, so it was too late. Fortunately, there is another one that just finished blooming and I'm hoping that it will be left long enough for it to produce some seed.

I did some googling and determined that the plant is Pyrrhopappus carolinianus, or "False Dandelion".