Lactuca dregeana Dc.

Perennial herb, up to 1.2 m high; lower part of stems spinulose; plant with milky latex. Leaves alternate, sessile; blade up to 150 x 15 mm; basal leaves runcinate or sinuate-dentate, apex acuminate, base sagittate; stem leaves linear, apex attenuate, base sagittate, margins entire; midrib aculeate. Heads ligulate, small, several in large, terminal, pyramidal panicle. Involucre ± 8 x 2 mm, increasing up to ± 12 x 4 mm in fruiting; involucral bracts 2-4-seriate, imbricate. Flowers yellow?; Dec.-Feb. Fruit with cypsela greyish brown, obovate, dorsiventrally flattened, multistriate, ciliate at apex, ± 3 x 1 mm, with long beak. Pappus of many, soft barbellate bristles.