Alpine ragwort

Senecio nemorensis is a tall, erect perennial herb of the Asteraceae family, typically 60 to 150 centimetres tall, growing from a short, knotty rhizome and producing one or several stout, ridged, sparsely hairy to nearly glabrous flowering stems usually unbranched below the inflorescence. The numerous alternate, lanceolate to oblong-elliptic, distinctly stalked or short-stalked leaves are 8 to 20 centimetres long and 1.5 to 5 centimetres wide, with a sharply serrate margin, an acuminate apex, a wedge-shaped base and a glabrous to thinly pubescent surface. The terminal compound corymb carries numerous medium-sized yellow flower heads, each 1.5 to 2.5 centimetres across, with a central disc of yellow tubular florets surrounded by five to eight (occasionally more) widely spaced, narrow, pale yellow ray florets, subtended by a single row of green, often dark-tipped linear phyllaries. The fruit is a small ribbed cylindrical achene 3 to 4 millimetres long with a soft white pappus that aids wind dispersal. Native to damp, shaded mountain woodlands, streambanks and tall-herb communities of central and eastern Europe and adjacent western Asia.