Shrubby sow thistle
Sonchus fruticosus
Family · Asteraceae · Harmless
The sow thistle that turned into a shrub: a woody stem two metres tall with a rosette of enormous leaves at the top and a posy of yellow flowers above. It is what islands do to ordinary weeds.
Walls and rocks · Uplands · Oak woods
Also known asMadeira sow thistle
How to tell it
A woody, thick, little branched stem with leaf scars. Large leaves twenty to forty centimetres, deeply cut, gathered in a rosette at the top. Large yellow heads in a corymb above the leaves. White latex from any cut, the genus's mark. Range: endemic to Madeira.
What it is confused with
Sow thistle
Sonchus oleraceus
The common one is an annual half a metre tall with a hollow soft stem; this is woody, two metres tall, with a stem that does not give under pressure. Both give white latex and both are harmless.
Open sheet →What it is for
No use to recommend. It is a textbook example of island gigantism: the same family as the sow thistle growing in any mainland garden, here turned into a woody shrub because on the islands there were no herbivores eating it.