Rough hawkbit
Thrincia hispida
Family · Asteraceae · Harmless
The yellow flower anyone would call a dandelion, and is not: a solid, not hollow, stem covered in two or three-pointed hairs, and a single head at the top.
Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Dunes and sand · Uplands
Also known ashairy hawkbit, rough leontodon
How to tell it
A rosette of cut leaves covered in rough hairs branching into two or three points, seen with a lens and decisive. A leafless stem, solid when squeezed, with a single yellow head. The heads close in rain and at night. Without abundant latex, unlike dandelion.
What it is confused with
Dandelion
Taraxacum officinale
Squeeze the stem: hollow and full of milk in dandelion, solid and nearly milkless in this. And dandelion's outer bracts bend downward, this one's stay pressed close.
What it is for
No relevant use
It serves to dismantle a common error: not every yellow flower with a rosette is a dandelion, and the fastest way to separate them is to squeeze the stem, because a dandelion's is hollow and gives way.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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Nothing appears here without a person reading it first. Contributions do not replace the entry or its warnings: until a botanist confirms, what is written above stands.