Plant help needed

[urbpan]

There's a dyc (damned yellow composite, if you forgot) that is growing in dozens of locations (mostly roadsides) all around where I live. I'm fairly certain it's in the genus Hieracium. (All the plant people just sputtered out a humorless laugh. There may be anywhere between 200 to more than a thousand species in this very troublesome genus.) It is not hairy, like most hawkweeds. It has leaves all along the stem, more than half the way to the flowers--it looks like most hawkweeds have rosettes only, or just a few leaves up the stem.

Do I have a chance of identifying this thing to species?



My best guess is H. paniculatum, but I don't trust that, since that's a native species, and this thing is behaving like an alien invasive.

Comments

[godstatic.livejournal.com]

I think it's highly unlikely you'll ever narrow it down that far....maybe to two or three species. My horticulture professor has in the past been unable to identify proper a species of plant while taking us out on a walk, and even after extensive reading and study on the plant still failed to narrow it down to less than 5 species, and he's been doing this for forty years or more.

Nature is a tricky and strange mistress. :)