Mystery Weed

[Roma]

This has me puzzled.  I thought it was a dandelion but on closer inspection it definitely is not.  Rabbits or deer have been eating the flower buds but i suspect they will be yellow.  Keble Martin is my usual reference for wild flowers but nothing there quite fits.  I should be able to use a key but prefer pictures.  This seems to be the only plant and I have not seen anything like it before.

[Maggi Young]

Is  Senecio aquaticus a possibility, do you think?  I don't know if it has those hairy stems though..... 

[Maggi Young]

Crepis capillaris ?

[Hoy]

I think Maggi is right, at least i believe it is a Crepis.

[Roma]

Crepis does seem most likely.  I just don't understand where it could have come from.

[Jupiter]

I agree with Crepis capillaris. We have it here as a weed of wasteland and roadsides and I know it well. Maybe i's a recent introduction Roma?

[Lesley Cox]

So that is what has invaded my Crepis incana! We have a lot of this weed here and usually they just pull out but the one in question has become established in Crepis incana and no amount of pulling bits has done anything but encourage it to grow even more. I intended to lift the clump and separate them out but it may be too late now for the pinkie. And it's snowing/raining/sleeting and has been for about 3 weeks and we're almost under water so I'm not too keen on gardening just right now.

Like with you Jamie, it's a well known pasture and wasteland weed. I don't remember a time when we didn't have it, especially on roadside verges and I've had it in every garden I've ever lived in. Not usually a problem except for its numbers but easily controllable - usually. I always thought it was a kind of dandelion.

[Growild]

Could also be Wild Chicory leaves are identical.

[Maggi Young]

Could also be Wild Chicory leaves are identical.

Oh! Cichorium intybus ? Never thought of that - and yet  it is naturalised in much of this area so it should  be a possibility.

[Anthony Darby]

Crepis capillaris is common right throughout the UK. Only absent from the central highlands. http://www.naturespot.org.uk/species/smooth-hawks-beard

[Jupiter]

The flowers will settle this when they come (if you haven't pulled them all out). My money is still firmly on Crepis capillaris. Leaves are very similar but not identical.

[Alan_b]

Hawksbeard grows all over the place here so I'm surprised you have not encountered it before.  Don't take any chances but it might be edible http://www.eattheweeds.com/crepis-japonica-seasonal-potherb-2/

[Lesley Cox]

Blue flowers on the chicory, yellow on the hawkweed.

[David Lyttle]

Crepis capillaris - well and truly naturalised here along with its fellow travellers Taraxacum officinale, Hypochaeris radicata, Leontodon taraxacoides to name just a few. That does not exhaust the list of yellow dandelions. I am still trying to figure them all out.

I have attached a picture of it flourishing far from its home. When I made a comment that my neighbourhood was a biodiversity hotspot a botanist friend agreed saying  "Yes, most of it imported from the northern hemisphere!"

[Anthony Darby]

Here's a weed that grows in profusion in the rarely cut areas around the local football pitches.