Slender sowthistle
Sonchus tenerrimus
Family · Asteraceae · Harmless
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The lace-leaved sowthistle that emerges from wall cracks and pavement joints and flowers all year. It is the tenderest of the sowthistles and the favourite of anyone who keeps rabbits.
Walls and rocks · Town and roadside · Roadsides and waste ground · Scrubland
Also known asMediterranean sowthistle
How to tell it
Leaves divided into very narrow, widely spaced segments, lace-like, far finer than common sowthistle's. White latex in the stem. Small yellow heads, many at once.
What it is confused with
Sow thistle
Sonchus oleraceus
The leaf: lacy with narrow segments here, broad with full lobes on the common one. Both edible, the mistake costs nothing.
What it is for
Young leaves in salad and cooked, milder than common sowthistle's. Universal food for rabbits, hens and tortoises across the Peninsula.
Traditionally used as food. This is not permission to eat it.
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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