False sow-thistle

Reichardia tingitana, the false sowthistle or Tangier reichardia, is a glabrous annual or biennial herb of the Asteraceae native to the Mediterranean basin, North Africa, the Canary Islands and southwestern Asia eastward to Iran, and naturalised in parts of southern Europe, India and Australia. It grows 10-50 cm tall from a slender taproot, with mostly basal, somewhat fleshy and glaucous, oblanceolate to runcinate-pinnatifid leaves 5-15 cm long, having toothed or wavy margins and an auriculate, clasping base. The branched, hollow flowering stems bear a few reduced cauline leaves and terminate in solitary or loosely arranged, long-peduncled flower heads 2-4 cm across. Each capitulum consists of bright yellow ligulate florets, often with a maroon, brown or purple-black basal spot that creates a characteristic dark eye in the centre, and is subtended by ovate-lanceolate, scarious-margined involucral bracts. The achenes are pale brown, oblong, transversely ridged and bear a deciduous pappus of soft white capillary bristles. It flowers from late winter through spring and inhabits dry sandy soils, fallow fields, vineyards and roadsides.