Pentanema britannicum

Pentanema britannicum is a perennial herb of the Asteraceae family growing 20-80 cm tall from a creeping rhizome that produces loose colonies in suitable habitats. Stems are erect, simple or sparingly branched in the upper part, ribbed, more or less softly hairy and leafy throughout. Basal leaves form a rosette that often withers at flowering and are oblanceolate, narrowly tapered into a winged petiole; stem leaves are alternate, oblong-lanceolate to lanceolate, 4-10 cm long, sessile and clasping the stem with a slightly auriculate base, entire to finely toothed and softly white-hairy beneath. The inflorescence is a loose corymb of one to several terminal heads 2-4 cm across, each subtended by a multiseriate involucre of narrow, recurved, glandular and pubescent green bracts. Ray florets are numerous, narrowly strap-shaped, 8-15 mm long and clear golden-yellow; disc florets are deeper yellow and tubular. The achene is small, cylindrical, sparsely hairy and crowned with a pappus of slender bristles. Native to moist meadows, riverbanks, ditches and damp open ground across temperate Europe and western Asia.