Scientific name: Sonchus asper (L.) Hill
Common name: Sow-thistle
Description
Habit: Annual, 30-80 cm high.
Stems: Hollow, hairless, with latex.
Leaves: Alternate, pinnatifid, usually wavy with numerous, prickly marginal teeth; lower leaves stalked, the upper clasping the stem and with auricles round in outline.
Flowers: Flower-heads numerous, 20-25 mm across in a crowded corymb or irregular umbel; involucral bracts overlapping in several rows, conical and closed at top during ripening of the fruit; florets all ligulate and yellow.
Fruits: An achene, flattened, not beaked, with faint longitudinal ribs but no transverse wrinkles; pappus of unbranched, white hairs.
Habitat: Cultivated ground, limestone pavement, sand dunes, walls, roadsides, other semi-open habitats.
Distribution: Abundant on the limestone and frequent elsewhere.
Native status: Native
Of conservation interest: No