UROSPERMUM PICROIDES

Family and Genus:- See- COMPOSITAE

Common Names:- Prickly golden-fleece

Homotypic Synonyms:- Arnopogon picroides, Tragopogon picroides,

Tragopogonodes picrodes.

Meaning:- Urospermum (Gr) Tailed-seed.

Picroides (L) Bitter.

General description:- Annual.

Stem:-

1) 30-45 cm, long-hispid and spinulose.

Leaves:-

1) 40-140 x 10-50 mm, hispid or spinulose at least on the veins beneath.

a) lower, obovate-oblong, pinnatifid or dentate, with winged petiole.

b) upper, ovate to linear, acute, more or less dentate, auriculate-amplexicaul.

Flowers:-

1) Capitula, sulphur-yellow, often with a black centre, 35-50 mm, diam, 1-9 on long

peduncles thickened at the apex.

2) Florets, all rayed, the outer flushed with reddish-brown on the reverse.

3) Involucral bracts, 13-22 x 5-8 mm, ovate-lanceolate, long-acuminate, hispid and

spinulose.

4) Flower-bracts, oval-lance-shaped, often with a dark violet margin, long-pointed

and bristle-hairy.

5) Ligules, pale yellow.

Fruit:-

1) Body of achene, 5-6·5 mm, more or less oblong but swollen distally, with short,

obtuse projections; beak 6-8 mm, slender, cylindrical, shortly hairy.

2) Pappus, white.

Key features:-

1) Involucral bracts, ovate-lanceolate, long-acuminate, spinulose.

2) Pappus, white.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Cultivated, fallow and waste ground, roadsides, olive groves.

Distribution:- Widespread and common throughout the Mediterranean. Widespread

and common on Crete.

Flowering time:- Mar-June.

Photo by:- Steve Lenton