Sonchus

  • Authority

    Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.

  • Family

    Asteraceae

  • Scientific Name

    Sonchus

  • Description

    Description - Annual or perennial succulent herbs, with alternate, mostly auriculateclasping, entire dentate iobed or pinnatifid, prickly-margined leaves, and large or middle-sized, peduneled, corymbose or paniculate heads of yellow flow Involucre ovoid or campanulate, usually becoming thickened and more or less conic at the base when old, its bracts herbaceous or membranous, imbricated in several series, the outer successively smaller. Receptacle flat, naked. Bays truncate and 5-toothed at the apex. Anthers sagittate at the base. Style branches slender. Achenes oval, oblong, or linear, more or less flattened, 1- 20-ribbed, somewhat narrowed at the base, truncate. Pappus of very copious soft white simple capillary bristles, usually falling away connected, sometimes with 1 or 2 stouter ones which fall separately. [The Greek name of the Sowthistle.] About 45 species, of the Old World. Type species: Sonchus oleraceus L.