Senecio dubitabilis - Dark Rayless Ragwort

Dark Rayless Ragwort is an annual herb with stems erect, 5-30 cm tall, branching from base or middle; branches erect or spreading. Flower-heads are disc-like, few to many, borne at branch-ends, in usually lax corymbs, carried on flower-cluster-stalks 1.5-4 cm, slender. Heads are narrowly bell-shaped, 6-7 x 2.5-5 mm, phyllaries about 15, linear, 0.5-1 mm wide, herbaceous, tip pointed, finely shortly bearded and sometimes blackish. Ray florets are absent. Disk florets are many, yellow, 6-6.5 mm, with 4-4.5 mm tube and cylindric limb. Leaves are stalkless; blade spoon-shaped, oblong-lanceshaped, oblong, or linear, 3-7 x 0.3-2 cm, lower ones narrowed into a stalked base, middle ones often expanded at base into irregularly toothed somewhat stem-clasping ears, pinnately shortly lobed with entire or few-finely toothed lobes to remotely toothed or entire, tip blunt to pointed. Upper leaves are smaller, lanceshaped to linear, margin finely toothed or entire. Seedpods are cylindric, 3-3.5 mm, densely velvet-hairy, pappus white, 7-7.5 mm. Dark Rayless Ragwort is found in sandy and rocky places, field margins, from East Europe to Russian Far East and West Himalaya, at altitudes of 2000-4800 m. Flowering: May-September.