Compilation
Lactuca welwitschii

Perennial herb, with annual flowering shoots (10–)20–90 cm high from long fleshy taproot; root-crown(s) one to several, short-hairy to lanate; flowering stems one to several, greenish brown, slightly glaucous, often tinged with red, wiry, sparsely branched distally or densely branched, glabrous. Leaves 2–6, in basal rosettes, usually appearing after flowering, green, glaucous beneath with reddish midrib and margins, (ob-)lanceolate to obovate, linear when young, 3–25(–35) cm long, 0.5–7 cm wide, base cuneate into a winged pseudopetiole to 3 cm long, margins entire to dentate to pinnatilobed, apex obtuse or acute, glabrous. Capitula few to many, in dense or lax corymbs or panicles; stalks of individual capitula 0.5–4 cm long; involucre narrowly cylindric, 10–16 mm long, up to 19 mm in fruit; phyllaries erect, but eventually reflexed, green, often tinged red, the outer ovate and 1–6 mm long with scarious margins, becoming swollen at base, the inner linear-lanceolate, 8–19 mm long, acute or obtuse, with narrow scarious margins. Florets 6–25 per capitulum; corolla yellow, the ligule with faint pink stripe, the whole often becoming red or purple, tube narrowly cylindric, 6–10 mm long, pilose distally, ligule 3–8 mm long, 1–1.5 mm wide. Achenes red-brown, narrowly fusiform, 4–8 mm long, angular and finely ribbed, glabrous or minutely puberulous; pappus of white setae 7–10.5 mm long.