This section is from the book "British Wild Flowers - In Their Natural Haunts Vol5-6", by A. R. Horwood. Also available from Amazon: A British Wild Flowers In Their Natural Haunts.
The habitat of this species is dry, sandy, gravelly soil, dry places. The habit is erect, or prostrate, spreading. The stem is slender (the plant greyish), repeatedly forked. The leaves are linear, lance-shaped, acute, flat, small, erect, closely pressed to the stem. The flowerheads are terminal, and in the axils, longer than the leaves, pyramidal, woolly, stalkless. The phyllaries are in 2 series, spreading at length, swollen, hollow below, lance-shaped, blunt, hairless, the tips discoloured, the florets yellowish. The fruit is rounded, with wartlike knobs. The plant is 2-8 in. high, flowering from June to September, and is a herbaceous annual.
The habitat of this species is dry pastures, commons, especially in the South of England, and it is now on the decrease in the Midlands and northwards. The habit is prostrate, ascending at the extremity. The whole plant is strong-smelling, downy, the stem branched from the base, with numerous leaves. The leaves are twice pinnate, with linear segments. The involucral bracts are blunt. The solitary terminal flowerheads are conspicuous with a yellow disk and white ray, the latter sometimes absent, the florets in the former cylindrical, the ray florets female. Between each 2 florets is an oblong blunt scale. The fruit is round or inversely egg-shaped. There is no pappus. The plant is a foot in height. It flowers in July and August, and is a herbaceous perennial.
The habitat of this species is dry banks, chalk downs. The habit is erect. The flowering stem is simple, shaggy. The root-stock is short with thick fibres. The radical leaves are egg-shaped, entire (hence integrifolia) or wavy, spreading, leathery, short-stalked, blunt, down) and cottony above. The stem-leaves are small, lance-shaped. The scape is stout or slender, with long, narrow, closely pressed bracts. The flowerheads are pale-yellow, few, in a corymb, on short, erect stalks with bracts below. The involucre is broadly bell-shaped, pale, hairless above, woolly below. The ray florets are as long as the bracts, which are blunt and narrow. The fruit is hairy, ribbed. The plant is 4-15 in. high, flowering in May and June, and is a herbaceous perennial.
The habitat of this plant is dry pastures and fields, gravelly and sandy fields, cultivated ground. It disappears after cultivation. The plant is erect, with the rosette habit. The stem is hollow upwards, swelling, leafless, being a scape, with a small bract below each branch, which overtops the previous one. The scapes are numerous, slender, rigid, with few branches above. The radical leaves are narrow, oblong, inversely egg-shaped to spoon-shaped, or lance-shaped, toothed. The flowerheads are yellow, terminal, solitary, small, or bell-shaped, inclined in bud. The phyllaries are herbaceous, downy, linear to lance-shaped, the tips narrow, blunt. The receptacle is honeycombed at the border. The fruit is small, pale-brown, rough between the ribs, crowned by a minute raised border, 5-angled, narrow below. The plant is 4-12 in. tall, flowering from June to August, and is a herbaceous annual.
The habitat of this species is chalky and gravelly banks, chalky places, chalk downs, shingle. The habit is the rosette habit. The stem is ribbed and furrowed, hairy, branched from below, round. The leaves are chiefly radical with lobes, turned back, each side of a common stalk, deeply divided to the base, the stem-leaves few, small, stalkless, lance-shaped, toothed below. The flowerheads are yellow, solitary, few, terminal, on long simple stalks, with bracts bent inwards, thicker above. The buds are drooping. The phyllaries are glandular, cottony, the inner hardening and enclosing the outer achenes, the outer erect or spreading. The fruit is yellow to brown, the beak of the outer ones shorter than the bracts, the inner longer beaked. There are closely-pressed hairs in the interior of the bracts. The plant has a strong odour. It is 6-18 in. high, flowering in June and July, and is an annual or biennial and herbaceous.
The habitat of this plant is dry banks, chalky pastures, limestone districts, and cultivated ground. The habit is as in the last. The stem is furrowed, angular, hairy, branched above, purple below. The leaves are rough, deeply divided nearly to the base, the lobes turned back, chiefly radical, with backwardly directed teeth, the terminal lobe large. The stem-leaves'are few, stalk-less, clasping, toothed, deeply divided nearly to the base. The flowerheads are yellow, purple below, the outer florets striped with brown on the back. The heads are cylindric to bell-shaped, on slender stalks, glandular, cottony, the outer phyllaries covering half the pappus, spreading, not enclosing the outer fruits. The buds are erect. The fruit is yellowish-brown, equally long-beaked, slender, narrowing into a bristle-like beak of the same length, with rough ribs. The plant is 1-3 ft. high, flowering in June and July, and is a herbaceous biennial.
Taraxacum erythrospermum, D.C. - The habitat of this species is dry sandy calcareous soils. The habit is much as in the type. The leaves are dull-green or bluish-green, deeply divided nearly to the base, the lowermost sometimes inversely egg-shaped and toothed, the upper with lobes each side of a common stalk, turned back, the teeth unequal, the intermediate ones smaller. The outer phyllaries are lance-shaped, close-pressed or spreading, the inner appendiculate below the tip or swollen. The fruit is bright-red, prickly at the apex, the beak having a thickened, coloured base.