Compilation
Sonchus oliveri-hiernii

Annual or short-lived perennial herb, erect and 0.2–2 m high or climbing to 6 m high; stems 1–several, branched from base, green or reddish, hollow, glabrous except for the most distal parts of the inflorescence, sometimes procumbent and up to 2 m long, sending up erect leafy shoots to 1 m high. Leaves grey-green, sessile, ovate or lanceolate in outline, the lower leaves usually pinnately lobed with narrow retrorse lobes, 5–20 cm long, 0.5–1.5 cm wide without the lobes, the lobes linear to triangular, 1–5 cm long, 0.3–2 cm wide, with 2–4 pairs of lobes, base briefly sagittate to auriculate, margins entire to dentate, apex acute to attenuate; the upper leaves usually entire or with few lobes, with a very broad base, 4–19 cm long, widest around the stem and there 1–5 cm wide, sagittate and broadly auriculate, margins (especially of the base) dentate, apex acute to attenuate. Capitula several together in dense clusters, these arranged in lax leafy corymbs or panicles; capitula subsessile or shortly stalked, mature capitula surrounded by bud capitula, their bases and the upper part of the capitulum stalk with a white tomentum; involucre 12–16 mm long; phyllaries green with red-purple tinge on margins and apex, ovate to lanceolate, 3–15 mm long, obtuse, the outer proximally tomentose, the inner glabrous. Florets many; corolla yellow, the outer orange beneath, tube cylindric, 8–9.5 mm long, distally pilose; ligule 4–6 mm long, 0.5–1 mm wide. Achenes pale brown, narrowly ellipsoid, slightly flattened, 3–4 mm long, angular and ribbed, rugulose, glabrous; pappus white, 8–10 mm long.