Senecio hastatus L.

Rhizomatous perennial herb up to c. 40 cm high, crown with one or several leaf rosettes, flowering stems several, lateral to each rosette, simple below the inflorescence, but often forking low down and then carrying the heads in a spreading corymbose-panicle, leafy, stems, leaves and involucral bracts glandular-pubescent to softly pilose. Radical leaves sometimes tinged purple below, up to 20 x 4 cm, oblong or oblanceolate in outline, tapering to a broad, flat, half-clasping petiole-like base, pinnatifid or lobulate, lobes in several pairs, decreasing in size downwards, oblong, rounded, denticulate or more coarsely toothed or lobed, sinuses broad, rounded, often denticulate; cauline leaves sometimes similar but sessile, eared, half-clasping, or linear-lanceolate, acute, base eared, half-clasping, margins sharply serrate, passing upwards into inflorescence bracts. Heads radiate, few to c. 20 on long sparingly bracteate peduncles in spreading corymbose-panicles. Involucre campanulate, bracts c. 12-14, 9-12 mm long, about equalling the disc, calyculus bracts very few. Rays c. 8(-12), long, spreading, rays and disc yellow, corolla lobes with a short median line. Achenes 4-4.5 mm, narrowly cylindric, closely ribbed, white-hispid between the ribs.