Sonchus

Annual, biennial or perennial herbs, with milky latex. Leaves alternate or sometimes rosulate, often with cauline leaves stem-clasping, entire, dentate, pinnatifid or dissected. Capitula ligulate, sessile or peduncled, in irregular corymbose panicles or rarely solitary. Involucre ovoid or campanulate; bracts in several rows, ovate to linear, densely tomentose to glabrescent. Receptacle flat, honeycombed, epaleate. Florets (ligules) bisexual, fertile; corolla yellow, strap-shaped; tube longer than linear or elliptic, shortly 5-lobed lamina. Anthers sagittate at base, auricles shortly setaceous-acuminate; with a lanceolate, apical appendage. Style linear, becoming terete and pubescent above; branches medium to long, sweeping hairs small. Cypselas somewhat compressed, elliptic or oblong, ribbed, smooth or rugulose. Pappus in many rows, always dimorphic, of fine, down-like hairs intermixed with bristles. x = 9 (7, 8) (aneuploids, high polyploidy).