Taraxacum canaliculatum

Taraxacum canaliculatum is a perennial dandelion of the family Asteraceae belonging to section Ruderalia, the large group of weedy, apomictic (agamospermous) microspecies that together make up the common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) aggregate. Like its relatives it is an acaulescent rosette herb arising from a stout, milky-juiced taproot, producing a basal rosette of runcinate to pinnatifid leaves whose lobes are often channelled or grooved, a feature reflected in the epithet "canaliculatum." Each solitary yellow flower head is borne on a hollow, leafless scape exuding white latex when broken; the head is composed entirely of ligulate (strap-shaped) florets. After flowering the receptacle expands into the familiar spherical "clock" of one-seeded cypselae, each bearing a long beak topped by a parachute-like pappus of white bristles for wind dispersal. A triploid roadside and grassland microspecies described from northern Europe, it occurs in the Nordic region and similar disturbed, weedy habitats of verges, lawns and meadows.