Nipplewort
Lapsana communis
Family · Asteraceae · Harmless
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The shade daisy with small yellow heads open like little stars, atop a much branched stem. The lower leaves have a large round terminal lobe, like a spade.
Oak woods · Town and roadside · Roadsides and waste ground · Streams and ditches
Also known asdockcress
How to tell it
The lower leaves have a large rounded terminal lobe and two or three pairs of small lobes behind, on a winged stalk. Small heads, a centimetre across, with only eight to fifteen ray florets, which makes them look like stars rather than daisies. It makes no flying seed plume. White latex.
What it is confused with
Herb Robert
Geranium robertianum
They grow side by side in the same shade and the lower leaves are confused. Nipplewort has leaves with a large round terminal lobe and yellow flowers; herb Robert has leaves divided into five segments, red stems and pink flowers, and smells bad when crushed. Neither is dangerous.
Open sheet →What it is for
The young leaves were eaten cooked and in salads across Europe, and the English and Portuguese names come from traditional use on cracked nipples during breastfeeding. Traditional use, in the past.
Traditionally used as food. This is not permission to eat it.