Sticky Groundsel - Senecio viscosus

Very sticky, foetid grey looking plant, upper leaves unstalked, but scarcely clasping the stem. Flowerheads pale yellow, 6 to 10 mm with outer florets at first spreading and then rolled back. Flower bracts green and not dark tipped.

Common Groundsel

With glandular hairs, and very sticky. Bracts at the base of the flower head a third to a half as long as the main ones; Heath Groundsel has bracts shorter than this

Photograph of whole plant, showing glandular hairs and a side-on view of flowerheads, showing bracts

Waste and disturbed ground, roadsides, railways and stony places.

July to October.

Annual.

Locally common in Britain north to south Scotland.

Fairly frequent in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 242 of the 617 tetrads.