Montane, subalpine, alpine. Meadows.  Summer, fall.
Lake Hope Trail, August 11, 2009.

Chlorocrepis tristis is a minutely slender plant often lost in the greenery of other more robust plants. In this photograph, the more robust plant slanting from lower right to upper left and crossing behind the ruler at about the six inch mark, is Rosy Paintbrush, Castilleja rhexifolia. To see the C. triste plant, start at its basal leaves at the bottom of the photograph and follow the two leafless, very slender stems upward to the quite small flower heads at the six inch and ten inch marks on the ruler.  The leaves in the upper right belong to Marsh Marigolds, Psychrophila leptosepala. 

Look for Chlorocrepis tristis blooming at high altitudes in late summer and early fall and a bit earlier as low as 7,500 feet.

This species was named Hieracium triste by Carl Willdenow in the description by Kurt Sprengel in 1826. William Jackson Hooker named the plant Hieracium gracile in 1833 and Love and Love renamed it Chlorocrepis tristis in 1975.

"Chloro" is Greek for "green" and "crepis" is a name given by Pliny several thousand years ago to a now unknown plant.  "Tristis" is Latin for "dull" or "sad" and "gracilis" is Latin for "slender". 

Montane, subalpine, alpine. Meadows.  Summer, fall.
Lake Hope Trail, August 11, 2009.

Flower heads are usually covered with a mixture of longer silky-silvery hairs and shorter bristly-glandular black hairs.

Montane, subalpine, alpine. Meadows.  Summer, fall.
Lake Hope Trail, August 11, 2009.

Basal leaves can range from hairy to glabrous, from smooth-margined to slightly serrated, and from long and narrow to almost circular (always with petioles).