Cats Ear

Botanical name: Hypochoeris radicata

Common Names

Cat's Ear, Cat's-Ear, Catsear, Common Catsear, False Dandelion, Flat Weed, Hairy Cat's Ear, Hairy Cat's-Ear, Hairy Catsear, Hairy Wild Lettuce, Rough Cat's Ear, Spotted Cat's Ear, Spotted Cat's-Ear

CATS EAR DESCRIPTION

Herbaceous perennial growing from hard, thickened, overwintering base (caudex); fibrous-rooted, but often with several enlarged roots, appearing tap-rooted; leaves in a basal rosette, hairv (hispid), oblanceolate, toothed or pinnatifid, 3-25 cm long and 0.5-7 cm wide; stems (stalks) 15-60 cm tall, branched above, or in small plants simple, sparsely and minutely bracteate, or naked, often spreading-hispid below, possessing a ‘milky’ juice; leafless, with small scale-like bracts only; flower heads (capitula) yellow, 20-30 (-40) mm wide, usually several, terminating the branches and rather showy; florets ligulate, monoclinous and bisexual, the ligules surpassing the involucre and about four times as long as wide; involucre l0-15 mm high at anthesis, up to about 25 mm in fruit, its bracts imbricate, glabrous or hispid; fruit an achene, orange or brown, body of the achene mostly 4-7 mm long, from a little longer to more often much shorter than the slender beak, the prominent nerves and the lower part of the beak muricate; pappus plumose with two rows of hairs, shorter outer hairs commonly merely barbellate.

SIMILAR SPECIES
May be confused with common dandelion, Taraxacum officinale.

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