Thursday 18 March 2010

Japanese Dandelion Definition


I found this definition to help me find Japanese dandelions while i'm there:

Family: Asteraceae

Genus: Taraxacum

Species Epithet: japonicum


Kansai-tanpopo. Dandelion


Perennial herbs. Leaves, oblanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 10 - 30 cm long, 3 - 5 cm wide, entire or variably lobed, usually with 5 or 6 pairs of triangular lateral lobes, sometimes pinnatifid to pinnatipartite; petiole green, sometime reddish, with or without a wing. Flowers March to May. Scape green or reddish, densely floccose at base of head. Head 2 - 3cm in diam., with 30 - 100 florets (average 80). Involucre green or dark green, 12 - 15 mm long at flowering. Exterior bracts appressed, 2/5 - 3/5 as long as involucre, densely villose on margin, with or without a small corniculate appendage to ca. 1.5 mm long; outermost bracts oblong-lanceolate to ovate-oblong, 3 - 5 mm long, 1.5 - 2.5 mm wide. Ligules yellow, 15 - 16 mm long, 2 - 2.5 mm wide. Style and stigma black. Pollen uniform in size and exine structure. Achenes mostly straw coloured, rarely dark brown, ovate, 3 - 3.5 mm long, ca. 1.5 mm wide, apex spinulose and tuberculate, smooth near base, cone conical, 0.5 - 0.8 mm long. Beak 5 - 8 mm long. Pappus white, 5 - 7 mm long. Sexual.
Sunny ruderal habitats such as roadsides and edges of paddy fields; below 500m.


Very helpful - thanks.

The image here is of a British dandelion (not Japanese). Hopefully i'll come back from my trip with lots of new images of Japanese dandelions.

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