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sow thistle

Hieracium oleracerum, Sonchus oleraceus

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14.1, 120.933

Field Notes

Description:

an herb, erect, annual, milky, hairy or slightly glandular, growing 40 to 80 cm high. Leaves are oblong to lanceolate, 10 to 20 cm long, coarsely and lyrately lobed; the lobes somewhat reflexed and toothed, the terminal ones large, the lateral pointing downwards, and those of the stem clasping at the base. Heads are peduncled, about 1 cm long. Bracts are smooth, thin and green. Flowers are numerous and yellow. Achenes are nearly 3 mm long, compressed, ribbed and rough.

Habitat:

Found in the Benguet subprovinces, Rizal and Laguna provinces in Luzon.
In waster places, along trails, old gardens, on talus slopes at altitudes of 1,200 to 2,000 meters.

Notes:

I guess this one is stunted, growing on the crack on the garden steps.

Species ID Suggestions

Comments (6)

Yes indeed, Sonchus is definitely another candidate. Sonchus has a milky juice in the leaves and stems, which is a good field mark, but so do the yellow Lactucas. Some naturalists call all these dandelion look-alikes DYC's, for "damned yellow composites" since they're so hard to tell apart.
Thank you Scott. I think I found the right one using your (Hieracium sp.) suggestion. http://www.stuartxchange.com/Gagatang.html
With multiple flowers on a single stalk it's most likely a Hawkweed (Hieracium sp.) or a Hawksbeard (Crepis sp.). They can be difficult to narrow down to the species level but here's one likely candidate, Crepis capillaris: http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?where-taxon=Crepis+capillaris
Scientific name (Taraxacum) its a dandelion

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