Slender sowthistle

Sonchus tenerrimus

Family · Asteraceae · Harmless

Edible

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.

Where it grows

Walls and rocks · Town and roadside · Roadsides and waste ground · Scrubland

Also known as

Mediterranean sowthistle

In flower

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

Harmless confusion

The leaf: lacy with narrow segments here, broad with full lobes on the common one. Both edible, the mistake costs nothing.

Open sheet →

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.

Sources

Flora-On