Bristly oxtongue
Helminthotheca echioides
Family · Asteraceae · Harmless
The yellow daisy relative whose leaves are covered in white blisters each with a spine in the middle, rough as sandpaper. It is on every verge in southern Europe and impossible to confuse once you have touched it.
Roadsides and waste ground · Fields and pasture · Town and roadside · Streams and ditches
Also known asoxtongue, bugloss picris
How to tell it
Dark green leaves with raised white pustules, each bearing a curved bristle, making it rough both ways. Bright yellow heads ringed by three to five broad heart-shaped outer bracts, much larger than the rest. White latex when cut.
What it is confused with
Hawkweed oxtongue
Picris hieracioides
Both are rough and yellow. Bristly oxtongue has white blisters with a spine in the centre and three broad heart-shaped outer bracts; hawkweed oxtongue has hooked hairs but no white blister and all-narrow bracts.
Open sheet →Sow thistle
Sonchus oleraceus
Both give white latex and yellow flowers. Sow thistle is smooth and soft to touch, bristly oxtongue scrapes like sandpaper. It is a difference you feel before you see.
Open sheet →What it is for
Traditionally eaten in Italy and eastern Spain, gathered very young before it turns rough, always cooked. Once grown it is not eaten: the leaves scrape the throat.
Traditionally used as food. This is not permission to eat it.