Taraxacum litorale

Taraxacum litorale is a perennial herb of the dandelion aggregate (Taraxacum officinale s.l.), forming a basal rosette of leaves arising directly from a stout, fleshy taproot. The leaves are oblanceolate and runcinate, with backward-pointing lobes along the margins, and exude a milky white latex when broken. Each flowering scape is hollow, leafless and bears a solitary composite head of numerous bright yellow ligulate florets. After flowering the head matures into a globose cluster of pappus-bearing achenes that are dispersed by wind. As a coastal microspecies its name refers to littoral, sandy or saline habitats, but it is otherwise scarcely distinguishable from the broadly distributed common dandelion. It favours open, disturbed and grassy ground and reproduces largely by apomixis, producing seed without fertilisation.