What Does It Look Like?
What is it?
Mediterranean Daisy (Urospermum dalechampii) is an annual or perennial herb. It has a showy leaf rosette at the base of the plant and an upright flower stem, growing to about 50 cm and with abundant milky sap. The rosette leaves are lobed with smooth or broadly toothed leaf margins, and grow to 16–19 cm long. The leaves on the flower stems are smaller, stalkless and partially wrapped around the stem (clasping), often with smooth leaf margins. The stems and leaves are scattered, with spreading to slightly backwards facing hairs (Chianti Botanical Park 2005; Thompson 2007).
The flower heads are solitary or in twos, to 60 mm diameter. The whorl of bracts (modified leaves) surrounding the flower head and rising from its base, measures 12–15 mm long and 8–10 mm diameter. The flower head is about 15 mm long and 5-lobed (Chianti Botanical Park 2005; Thompson 2007). The ligules or 'petals' have tips that are dark in colour and divided into four or five tips. The hue is rather unusual among the Asteraceae, which are usually egg-yellow. This is a beautiful lemon yellow or sulphur yellow and those at the outer edge sometimes have red streaks on the underside (Tasweeds 2003; Chianti Botanical Park 2005).
The fruit is black, contains 1 seed and is about 15 mm long. The seed is curved, with the basal portion flattened and about 4 mm long. The apex is plumper, wrinkled and tapering into a long, shortly hairy beak, about 10 mm long and topped off with a pappus (a tuft of feathery cream bristles) which is also about 10 mm long (Chianti Botanical Park 2005; Thompson 2007).
For further information and assistance with identification of Mediterranean Daisy, contact the herbarium in your state or territory.
Flower colour
Yellow
Growth form (weed type/habit)
Herb
Where it currently grows? Preferred habitat
Mediterranean Daisy prefers fields, uncultivated areas, meadows, the grassy edges of clearings and roadsides, hills and mountains, from sea level up to about 1200 metres altitude (Chianti Botanical Park 2005).
Are there similar species?
Mediterranean Daisy is a plant which is easily recognized due to the distinctive yellow shade of its flowers and the large flower bud (Chianti Botanical Park 2005).
Mediterranean Daisy looks similar to False Hawkbit (U. picroides), which is also of Mediterranean origin, but which occurs in western Western Australia, southern South Australia, with isolated occurrences in New South Wales and western Victoria. In Mediterranean Daisy, the bracts (modified leaves below flower head) surrounding the flower head have silky hairs pressed close to the stem, whereas the bracts of False Hawkbit have spreading bristly hairs (Thompson 2007). Mediterranean Daisy may be distinguished from Tragopogon by having ligules (outgrowths of the inner junction between leaf-sheath and leaf-blade) longer than the bracts, whereas Tragopogon ligules are shorter than the bracts. Mediterranean Daisy can be distinguished from Hypochaeris by having only one series of bracts surrounding the flower head, whereas Hypochaeris have two or more (Thompson 2007).
