Ixeris chinensis

Ixeris chinensis is a perennial herb in the Asteraceae family, widely distributed across East Asia including China, Korea, Japan and parts of southeast Asia, where it grows as a common weed in fields, roadsides, lawns and disturbed ground. The plant arises from a slender taproot and short rhizome, producing a basal rosette of leaves and slender, ascending to erect flowering stems 10 to 40 centimetres tall, typically glabrous and exuding milky latex when broken. The basal leaves are lanceolate to oblanceolate, 5 to 15 centimetres long, with entire, sinuate-toothed or sometimes pinnatifid margins, tapering at the base into a narrow petiole. Stem leaves are few, much reduced and often sessile with clasping bases. The inflorescence is a loose, few-headed corymb at the stem apex; each head is about 1 to 1.5 centimetres across and consists entirely of yellow ligulate florets, sometimes tinged with reddish-purple beneath. Fruits are dark, narrowly ovoid, ribbed achenes crowned with a pappus of fine white bristles.