Daisy
(Bellis perennis)
Perhaps one of our most familiar flowers of all, the humble daisy can be seen growing in our garden lawns up to 10cm tall and flowering almost all year-round and exhibits the phenomenon of heliotropism, in which the flowers follow the position of the sun in the sky. The daisy, is a European species of the family Asteraceae, often considered the archetypal species of the name daisy. To distinguish this species from other plants known as daisies, it is sometimes qualified as common daisy, lawn daisy or English daisy. Daises are one of the most widespread wild flowers in the UK. It is a perennial herbaceous plant growing in short grassland and meadows on any soil type.
They can tolerate mowing, grazing and trampling. If we reduce the frequency of mowing, Daises will flower more and provide a valuable food source for hoverflies, honeybees and bumblebees.
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It has short creeping rhizomes and small rounded or spoon-shaped leaves from 2-5cm long that form a rosette at the base of the plant, and grow flat to the ground.
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It blooms from March to September
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Each flower is not just one flower, but a composite, made up of lots of tiny flowers which make up the domed yellow disc in the middle ('disc florets') and the surrounding white 'ray florets' (which look just like petals) in the form of a pseudanthium, consisting of many sessile flowers with white ray florets (often tipped pink or red), about 2-3cm in diameter.
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Each flower head or inflorescence is borne on a single leafless, hairy stem 2-10cm, rarely 15cm tall which grows from a group of dark green rounded leaves. The capitulum, or disc of florets, is surrounded by two rows of green bracts known as "phyllaries". The achenes are without pappus.
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Mugwort
(Artemisia vulgaris)
Artemisia vulgaris, the common mugwort, is a species of flowering plant in the daisy family Asteraceae. It is one of several species in the genus Artemisia commonly known as mugwort, although Artemisia vulgaris is the species most often called mugwort. Artemisia can be shrubs, perennials or annuals, evergreen or deciduous, with usually grey, aromatic, often divided foliage and rather insignificant flower-heads
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Mugwort is native to temperate Europe, Asia, North Africa, and Alaska, and is naturalized in the UK, but not native. Found commonly throughout much of Britain, but mainly coastal in Scotland, it is a very common plant growing on nitrogenous soils, such as field edges, hedgerows, waste places, roadsides and other weedy and uncultivated areas.
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Care should be taken when collecting this plant as the leaves can look similar to Monks Hood, a beautiful but deadly poisonous common plant that can poison by touch but this does not seem to cause fatal toxicity, the leaves on Mugwort have a silver/white hairy underside that Monks Hood lacks. When in flower, there should be no confusion between the two.
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A medium to tall, upright, rhizomatous, somewhat hairy, tufted, herbaceous perennial growing up to 2.5m tall with an extensive rhizome system. The roots are long, tough and brown with inner white flesh. Rather than depending on seed dispersal, it spreads slowly through vegetative expansion by short rhizomes and the anthropogenic dispersal of root rhizome fragments. It can propagate from small rhizome fragments. The rhizomes may be spread or transported by cultivation equipment and among the roots of transplanted herbaceous plants infested with the weed. Rhizome fragments can also be transported in topsoil.
The erect stems are grooved with a wide pith and can be from green to a red-purplish tinge, covered sparsely in tiny white hairs.
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The slightly aromatic leaves are 5–20cm long, deep green on top and silvery white underneath, with dense, white, tomentose hairs on the underside. They are deeply lobed, pinnate and the upper sessile, and can vary from thin spear like leaves to wider examples. Mature leaves glabrous, or nearly so, on the upper side
Tiny green and white striped buds appear in late Spring and early Summer, small cluster of flowers will emerge from each from July to September. There are many flowers on each limb and the narrow and numerous capitula (flower heads), are all fertile and spread out in racemose panicles. The rather small, egg shaped, florets, 3-4mm long, are radially symmetrical with many pale yellow or dark red petals, with obvious stigma and stamen appear from shiny green sepal cases, on short reddish or purplish stems. Both ray and disc flowers are present in more or less equal numbers. The flowers are primarily wind pollinated but are also visited by insects.
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Seed is set from August to October. Seed number per flowering stem is 9,000. Seed number per plant ranges from 50,000 to 700,000. However, some biotypes are reported not to produce viable seeds. The seeds exhibit some dormancy. Light and alternating temperatures are synergistic in increasing germination, chilling helps too. Seed germination is stimulated by soil cultivation. Germination is faster with dry-stored seed. In the field, seeds begin to germinate from early spring.
Seedlings emerge from February to November with flushes of emergence following soil disturbance. Rhizomes are initiated when seedlings approach 4 weeks old, lateral branches are produced at 9 weeks. The rhizomes vary in diameter from a few millimetres up to more than 1 cm. The finer rhizomes usually branch at the nodes and form a dense fibrous mass, the thicker rhizomes exhibit minimal branching. Rhizomes can penetrate to a depth of 7-18 cm in soil. The flower stems die in the autumn and leave a number of separate rhizomes that develop new shoots and overwinter as low leaf rosettes.
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A number of species of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) feed on the leaves and flowers of the plant.
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Rough Hawkbit
(Leontodon hispidus)
Yellow dandelion-type flowers can be difficult to tell apart, a situation not helped by three of the genera having common names that start with hawk, namely, hawkweeds, hawksbeards and hawkbits. Except for some very rare species hawkbits, dandelions and catsears can be distinguished from the rest by the absence of leaves along the flowering stem. Dandelions contain a milky juice, Cat's-ears have chaffy scales among their florets and hawkbits have neither.
Rough hawkbit is a short, grassland perennial, forming a rosette of coarsely hairy, lobed leaves, with leafless, unbranched stalks bearing yellow, dandelion-like flower heads in summer and early autumn. Widespread and fairly frequent in much of Britain except the far north, it is a member of the Daisy family and has been ranked very high in meadow flora nectar productivity.
Similar Species Other hawkbits (Lentodon and Scorzoneroides), Hawkweeds (Hieracium and Pilosella) and Cat's-ear (Hypochaeris)
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Rough Hawkbit is a low to medium, rosette-forming wildflower of grassland, hay meadows and road verges, railway embankments and other grassy habitats, often on well drained calcareous soil with full sun. Its ability to regenerate after close cutting or grazing from buds present on the stock allows it to persist within pastures but it can also be found in hay meadows,
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Rough Hawkbit is a little bit of a slow grower and can get out done in very good soil with a lot of competition where it is suppressed by larger species in rank vegetation so tends to disappear from neglected grasslands or nutrient rich sites.
Rough hawkbits deep tap root sustains it through summer when maximum shoot growth occurs. In established pastures the plant slowly spreads by means of adventitious roots but in more open ground regeneration is mainly by means of its wind dispersed seed.
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It is a plant somewhat resembling the Dandelion in appearance, with the leaves all springing from the root, 3 to 4 inches long, forming a basil rosette, jaggedly cut into, with the lobes pointing backwards, but instead of being smooth like the Dandelion, ​the leaves, stem and buds are covered in numerous forked hairs (Autumnal Hawkbit and Cat's-ear have simple hairs). The leaves also have a winged stalk.
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Each flower is on a long, 15-30cm, very hairy stem that swells slightly at the top beneath the heads. The stems are leafless but with a few bracts, which are very hairy.
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From June to October, the few solitary, bright yellow dandelion-like flowerheads which the plant bears are borne singly on slender stems, when in bud, they droop, and 25-40mm across when expanded, with the outer florets often reddish or orange and the bracts behind the flower appearing very shaggy. Rough hawkbit (Leontodon hispidus) blooms earlier than autumn hawkbit and can be differentiated by its wide-lobed and usually stellate-haired leaf-blade, and it is also usually more robust.
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Following the flowers are fluffy seed heads which are dispersed by the wind. In open areas the Rough Hawkbit therefore self seeds and spreads.
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Autumnal Hawkbit
(Scorzoneroides autumnalis)
Yellow dandelion-type flowers can be difficult to tell apart, a situation not helped by three of the genera having common names that start with hawk, namely, hawkweeds, hawksbeards and hawkbits. Except for some very rare species hawkbits, dandelions and catsears can be distinguished from the rest by the absence of leaves along the flowering stem. Dandelions contain a milky juice, catsears have chaffy scales among their florets and hawkbits have neither.
Until recently this species was know by the old botanical name of Leontodon autumnalis. Now known as Scorzoneroides autumnalis.
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Common throughout Britain, Autumn Hawkbit, the commonest of our hawkbits, is a rosette forming, low to medium, sometimes sprawling grassland perennial of short turf and open ground on a range of soil types. Usually with branched stems and several flower-heads each about 30 mm across, growing to 35 cm high. Most likely to be confused with Cat's-ear but with a stem that swells towards the top, no chaffy scales among the florets and with outer florets reddish beneath not greyish or greenish as is the case with Cat's-ear.
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The autumn hawkbit is a useful indicator of old meadows, while the Rough hawkbit is more of an opportunist, able to colonise areas of bare ground. Frequent in damp grassland, pastures, lawns and meadows, footpaths and wasteland. It is capable of growing on sites subject to periodic disturbance such as cutting and grazing. This rosette type herb has a strong tap root.
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Leaves are formed into a basal rosette, stalked and with the stalks winged. The leaves are similar to those of the dandelion but hawkbit leaves are narrower, and can be deeply lobed almost to midrib, or less lobed. The smooth, glossy leaves are visibly pointed and have sharper tips and sharper lobes than either Cat's-ear or Rough hawkbit. The leaves are glabrous or with a few simple (not forked) hairs. The autumn hawkbit has hairs on its leaves that come to a fine point, whilst the Rough hawkbit has hairs which split at the ends to resemble the letter “Y”
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The stems (10–40cm), usually branched, with many capitula, leafless, almost glabrous scape, pedicels thickening towards top, and is swollen just below bracts so it merges into the flowerhead, and with bracts overlapping in 2–3 rows, usually hairy but sometimes glabrous.
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It has bright yellow flowers like small dandelions, that form in loose clusters and bloom from June to October. The flowers are held on fine stems of 10-15cm which are sometimes branched. They are usually about 2cm diameter, surrounded by involucral bracts. Capitulum flowers yellow (outermost edge usually slightly reddish), tongue-like, tip 5-toothed. Stamens 5. Gynoecium composed of 2 fused carpels, the outer rays striped with red outside. ​No receptacular scales among the yellow florets. Flowers have a weak, pansy-like, slightly pungent fragrance.
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​After fertilisation occurs, the flowerheads produce almost glossy (weakly ribbed), brown achenes, crowned with feathery hairs. It rarely spreads by vegetative means and is dependent upon seed for regeneration; it therefore requires gaps created by disturbance if its seedlings are to establish successfully.
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Good for insects including bees and butterflies for the nectar, as well as finches for the seeds. The fly Tephritis leontodontis is known to attack the capitula of this plant.
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Lesser Hawkbit
(Leontodon saxatilis)
Yellow dandelion-type flowers can be difficult to tell apart, a situation not helped by three of the genera having common names that start with hawk, namely, hawkweeds, hawksbeards and hawkbits. Except for some very rare species hawkbits, dandelions and catsears can be distinguished from the rest by the absence of leaves along the flowering stem. Dandelions contain a milky juice, catsears have chaffy scales among their florets and hawkbits have neither.
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Leontodon are short-lived herbaceous perennials with a basal rosette of entire or pinnately lobed leaves in a basal rosette, and simple or branched stems bearing yellow flowerheads in summer or autumn. Low to short slightly hairy plant Leontodon saxatilis, is a species of native herb in the Asteraceae family. An identifying feature between Rough Hawkbit and Lesser Hawkbit is that the basal rosettes of Lesser Hawkbit are mostly lying flat on the ground (unlike the larger basal rosettes of Rough Hawkbit which are angled upwards off the ground, and are much hairier with larger leaves).
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It is native to Europe and North Africa which grows mostly on acid soils, and is typically found in rocky or stony habitats, such as hillsides, cliffs and rocky outcrops, it can tolerate poor soils and dry conditions. Widespread in the southern half of Britain, more coastal further north.
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Flower stems are leafless, unbranched, scarcely thickened below the flowerhead, but with a few bracts, mostly hairless towards the tip but bristly below. Up to 25 cm
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​It has a rosette of basal leaves narrowly oblong, broadest above the middle, untoothed to pinnately lobed. The basal rosettes of leaves are much smaller than those of Rough Hawkbit.​ The leaves are 2-15cm long, 0.5-2.5cm wide, entire or lobed, and green in colour. The leaves can be either hairy or hairless. The hairs are forked. The similar looking Autumn Hawkbit (Scorzoneroides autumnalis) and Common Cat's-ear (Hypochaeris radicata) have simple hairs.
​Solitary flowerheads bloom from June to October, and are drooping whilst in bud. Lesser Hawkbit carries bright yellow flowerheads 12-20mm across that are comprised of ray florets which are yellow above with a band of grey-violet below (L hispidus usually reddish beneath), almost the width of the ray. The end of each ray is divided into five small toothed points. ​The inner 3 teeth look reddish on each petal beneath (but not from above). The phyllaries are also reddish-edged. The female disc florets on the outside are long and with 2 paler stigmas recurving away from each other. The flowering heads are solitary on both Rough Hawkbit and Lesser Hawkbit but smaller at 12-20mm across on Lesser Hawbit (larger at 25-40mm across on Rough Hawkbit). Behind each flowerhead is a circle of bracts which are pale, narrow-lanceolate which are generally hairless apart from a line of short, bristly hairs along the middle, but usually much less hairy than Leontodon hispidus. Most bracts are equal in length, covering all of the involucre; there are also a few shorter bracts at the base.
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The fruit is a cylindrical achene with a pappus of scales. Fruits near the center of the flower head are rough, while those growing along the edges of the head are smooth. There are 2 types of fruit. The first is the outer achene - a cylindrical, non-beaked, pale brown achene with a pappus of scales. Up to 4mm in length. The second type is the inner achene - this is short-beaked and reaches 5mm in length. It has a pappus (feathery bristles) of 2 rows.
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Similar species Other hawkbits (Leontodon and Scorzoneroides), Hawkweeds (Hieracium and Pilosella) and Cat's-ear (Hypochaeris)
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Nipplewort
(Lapsana communis)
Common nipplewort, is a species of annual flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, which is native to Europe and southwestern Asia though widely naturalized in other regions, 30–120cm tall. This plant is usually an upright, branched, leafy annual but it can also be a short-lived perennial.
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Very common throughout Britain, and is recorded up to 1,500 ft. Nipplewort is a short to tall, erect annual, without milky latex., native in open woods, waste places and rough ground, roadside banks and other damp and shady places, as well, as being frequent in cultivated fields, field margins and hedgerows. When nipplewort occurs in the hedge bottom, plants are often found spreading into the arable field. It appears to grow best on loam and clay soils and often colonises cultivated soil. Autumn-germinating seeds can overwinter as rosettes and become very tall plants. Its form varies widely, depending on location.
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Two subspecies are recognised in the UK.
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Lapsana comumunis. Annual. Fairly ubiquitous throughout the UK
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Lapsana comumunis subsp. communis Subspecies communis is the native annual. Less than half as widespread as above, while
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Lapsana comumunis subsp. intermedia is an introduced annual to perennial form recorded in just a few places. Quite rare in the UK.
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This plant has a long thin, and fairly loosely rooted, white taproot. The green, leafy, multiply-branched stem has stiff hairs at the base and is smooth above, hollow, solid and weakly ridged, with leaves alternate up the stems. Growing to 1.2m with a wiry appearance and clear (not milky) sap. Flower stalks are long, narrow and randomly branched.
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Alternate and spirally arranged, all the light green and mostly hairy leaves have toothed margins. Lyrate-pinnatifid shaped. ​On mature plants the terminal lobe is much larger than the 1 – 3 pairs of lateral lobes below it. The larger lowest leaves at the base are often pinnate, with a large oval terminal leaflet and one to four small side leaflets, which are unlobed, are nearly oval but tapering to a point, and often with irregular side-lobes. Basal leaves grow to 15 cm long and are stalked. ​​Petioles are solid and up to 5 cm long on basal leaves. Intermediate height leaves are wide laceolate, some with blunt fowardly-directed teeth, while upper leaves being narrow, lanceolate–elliptic, are either short-stalked or stalkless. ​The leaves on established plants grow as rosettes, though in the summer, plants can bolt early. Nipplewort’s leaf shape does give it a similar appearance to Charlock (Sinapsis arvensis), although this plant contains no pungent aromatics.
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In Britain the composite flowers of Nipplewort appear from early June to October. It produces small, usually 1-2cm in diameter, pale yellow flowers in branched clusters. The open spikes of yellow dandelion-like flowers are smaller than those of other yellow composites. The flowers open in sunshine, during sunny days but, close up by mid-afternoon, they remain closed up during bad weather. The flower heads are arranged in a loose panicle, each compound ‘flower’ comprises typicaly 8 to 15 unusually long and splayed out, pale-yellow rayed florets, shaped like a tongue with a five-toothed tip, which are often, although incorrectly, referred to as petals, and just a few disc florets. ​Nipplewort has fewer ray-florets than most other yellow-flowered plants of the Asteraceae family. The ray florets often look as though there are two sets: a slightly longer outer row, and a slightly shorter inner row with fewer overlaying them. ​The ray florets are widest about 2/3rds of the way out from the centre, and terminating with 5 'teeth' (actually each 'tooth' is a flower). The end is usually wider than the start at the centre of the inflorescence. Each ray floret wraps around a disc floret in the centre, which means that there are an equal number of each. Stamens 5. Gynoecium composed of 2 fused carpels. The bi-forked stigmas of the female part of the flower. The florets are surrounded by a whorl of involucral bracts. Involucre narrowly elliptic, involucral bracts in 2 rows, inner bracts erect, equal height, narrow, hard, glabrous, green, outer bracts very small.
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The flowers are visited by insects but are often self-pollinated.
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Seed is set from July to October. The average plant has 1,000 seeds. The fruits of this plant are flattish, curved, ridged, yellowish- brown achenes typically 4mm long, though the seeds from the outer florets are longer than those from the inner ones. Their cross-section is also oval, or maybe 'long-barrel' shaped would better suit the description. The seeds are tapered at both ends and there are no tufts of hairs to help the seeds fly away, unlike other dandelion lookalikes, a Nipplewort flower head does not develop into a white pappus of parachute-like seeds. The achenes remain in a basket formed by the hardened remains of the erect involucral bracts. At the top are smaller circles of white; it is these which give the impression of 'stars' within the sepal/bract cups when looking down into it where the flowers have become detached.
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Nipplewort seeds are not spread by the wind. The numerous small seeds are retained in the cypsela until the rigid stem is shaken by the wind or a passing animal then they rely on being carried on feet or by birds eating them, although birds like to eat the seeds they probably don’t have much of a role in spreading them. The plant has a habit of quickly germinating on all manner of disturbed soils. In the field, nipplewort seed germinates in autumn and spring. After burial in soil seeds require light for germination. Seed sown in a layer of field soil and cultivated at regular intervals, emerged mainly from March to May with a smaller flush of emergence in August to October. Most seedlings emerged in the year after sowing with just a few emerging over the following 4 years. Seedlings that emerge in the autumn overwinter as a rosette of leaves.
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Cat's-ear
(Hypochaeris radicata)
Yellow dandelion-type flowers can be difficult to tell apart, a situation not helped by three of the genera having common names that start with hawk, namely, hawkweeds, hawksbeards and hawkbits. Except for some very rare species hawkbits, dandelions and catsears can be distinguished from the rest by the absence of leaves along the flowering stem. Dandelions contain a milky juice, catsears have chaffy scales among their florets and hawkbits have neither.
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Hypochaeris can be annuals or herbaceous perennials forming a basal rosette of leaves, with lax cymes of Dandelion like yellow flowers and seed heads, in summer. H. radicata is a rosette-forming perennial, This native member of the daisy family (Asteraceae) usually has two or occasionally three flowers on a branched stem.
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A common plant across Britain in meadows, pastures, lawns, heathland, cliff-tops, sand dunes, roadsides, railway banks and waste ground, Cat's Ear tolerates a wide range of conditions and readily grows in most ​moist but well drained soil types but is not usually found in wetlands. It is very tolerant of drought, and is absent from sites subject to prolonged waterlogging. ​This plant tolerates occasional mowing.
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It has a long fleshy caudex with fibrous roots, and branched, hairless and leafless stems, or very few, reduced leaves, with a basal rosette of leaves. The leaves, which may grow up to 20cm long, are green on top, and lobed with wavy edges, never cut to the midrib, while they are more grey-green and smooth underneath, and covered both the upper and lower surfaces, in coarse, unbranched, white hairs that are raised on pimples. The leaves form a low-lying rosette around a central taproot, and there is a conspicuous central vein that runs along the length of the lower surface of each leaf. There are a few alternate leaves along the flowering stalks; these leaves have been reduced to scales and are quite small. The foliage has a milky latex.
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The flowering stalks are hairless and usually sparingly branched; each of these branches terminates in a single bright yellow flowerhead spanning about 3-4cm across. Cats-ear blooms from June through to October. Each flowerhead consists of about 20-30 yellow ray florets and no disk florets. The ray florets spread outward from the centre of the flowerhead; each of these florets is truncate with 5 small teeth along its outer edge. Toward the centre of the flower are slender yellow styles that are bifurcated and recurved at their tips. Receptacular scales are present (i.e. narrow pointed bracts amongst the yellow florets). The base of each flowerhead has several series of dull green bracts (phyllaries) that are oblong-linear and appressed together to form a short cylinder. Toward the tip of each bract, there is often a central mid-rib with coarse white hairs. There are narrow, pointed bracts backing the flower heads and sometimes on the upper stems, but above the basal leaf rosette there are no real leaves along the hairless stems.
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When mature each floret is replaced by an achene with a thread-like beak that terminates in a windborne parachute of white hairs to float on the wind. This beak is as long as, or longer, than the achene. The dark achene is somewhat flattened, ribbed, and narrowly spindle-shaped, tapering at both ends. It produces many seeds per plant per year and each seed can become a mature plant in 2 months. The achenes are distributed by the wind. This plant reproduces primarily by reseeding itself, although offsets may form a short distance from the mother plant.
Hypochaeris species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including the shark moth.
This species is suspected of causing stringhalt in horses if consumed in excess (back legs may have exaggerated flexion, hopping gait).
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