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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Asteraceae
Taraxacum officinale

Citation: Weber ex Wiggets, Prim. Fl. Holsat. 56 (1780).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Dandelion.

Description:
Perennial herb 5-40 cm high; leaves oblanceolate, acute, with a narrow petiole-like base, 5-30 cm long, 1-7 cm wide, runcinately pinnatifid to pinnatipartite, rather lax, glabrous to sparsely pubescent.

Scapes 5-35 cm long, smooth, glabrous to sparsely cobwebby, brownish to green; capitulum 2-4.5 cm diam.; involucre 11-22 mm diam., 15-24 mm long; outer bracts recurved, to 12 mm long; inner bracts to 24 mm long, glabrous.

Achene body 2.5-3.5 mm long, grey-brown to straw-coloured; cone c. 0.7 mm long; beak 7-10 mm long, cream to brown; pappus c. 6 mm long, white to cream.

Published illustration: Cunningham et al. (1982) Plants of western New South Wales, p. 715.

Distribution:  Weed of suburban gardens and in disturbed sites on moist rich soil.

  All States except the N.T.   Native to Europe.

Conservation status: naturalised

Flowering time: most of the year.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Taxonomic notes: The name T. officinale is the earliest applied to the section Taraxacum, which comprises an aggregate of numerous microspecies in Europe; it is not known from which of these the Australian populations have been derived.

Author: Not yet available


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