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Urospermum picroides
Also called Prickly golden-fleece, False Hawkbit
A bristly annual weed of disturbed ground in the daisy family, native to the Mediterranean and western Asia and found in many warm regions elsewhere. It is grown mainly as a wild edible, not as an ornamental, and needs no special care.
Urospermum picroides is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by various common names including prickly goldenfleece, scaly hawkbit, false hawkbit, and prickly cupped goat's beard. It is native to Eurasia and it is known as an introduced species in many other regions, including North and South America, Australia, and southern Africa. It grows as a common weed in disturbed habitat. In Crete and Turkey where it grows natively, it is used as a wild edible plant.
This annual herb grows up to 30 to 50 centimeters tall. It is coated in long hairs and bristles. The bristly leaves are variously shaped, often divided into many sharp-toothed lobes. The inflorescence bears flower heads on thick peduncles. The head is 1 to 2 centimeters long or more and filled with yellow ray florets. It is enveloped in several pointed phyllaries which are covered in bristly hairs.
Urospermum picroides is commonly consumed by local communities of the Mediterranean basin in raw, boiled, or cooked form. The plant's ability to tolerate salinity shows potential for domestication and integration in cropping systems where the cultivation of conventional crops is compromised due to low quality irrigation water.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Urospermum picroides by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
