Tolpis staticifolia from Salzburg.

Tolpis staticifolia from Salzburg.

A few holiday photos from a visit to Salzburg,  and a new plant for me. 

First plant of interest was found while visiting the Hohensalzburg Fortress overlooking Salzburg. 

Tolpis staticifolia, 3rd June 2026. 

  A slightly different yellow composite as it showed a dark centre to the flower. 

The dark centre attracted my attention, as this was something different.

Very narrow leaves, all basal and leafless stems helped identification.

Narrow leaves lacking hairs also with a paler main vein.

Close up view of the inner florets show a different terminal structure to the outer florets, which is why the centre is darker, although photos on the web show this is not always a prominent feature. 

Although I did not notice this at the time, the photo shows the ray florets (ligules) are hairy on the undersides, an unusual feature. The narrow phyllaries (involucral bracts) have cobwebby white hairs only.

Final shot showing flowering stems are simple or sparingly branched. 

Identification was based using the book, The Alpine Flowers of Britain and Europe by Christopher Grey-Wilson and Majorie Blaney, 1979.  On return from my holiday, I purchased Europe's Alpine Flowers by Bob Gibbons part of the WILDGuides series. This recent book covers more species and contains concise useful information. 

Tolpis staticifolia  was previously called Hieracium staticifolia and it is hard to find more detail on its characteristics.  The hairs on the underside of the ligules and the strange terminations to the inner ligules, which make the centre dark, are unusual, but I didn't find any reference to them in a limited search of either the web or standard literature.  

Peter Leonard

Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, UK

7th July 2026

 

Crepis foetida Subsp. rhoedifolia in Cambridgeshire.

Stinking Hawk's-beard Crepis foetida Subsp. rhoeadifolia in Cambridgeshire.

Crepis foetida subsp. rhoeadifolia

In late July 2023 the BSBI County Recorder, Jonathan Shanklin found an interesting Crepis at Hobson's  Park next to Addenbrooks Hospital. With the help from Alan Leslie and his vast library, it was identified as Crepis foetida subsp. rhoeadifolia.  Unlike the native species Crepis foetida subsp. foetida which hangs on at Dungeness and Rye, rhoeadifolia is a plant of  central and south-eastern Europe. One has to assume it arrived in a seed mix. This sub-species has not been recorded in Britain for many years.

The crepis group are complex, with a large number of species  displaying "reticulate evolution via hybridization across lineages or of incomplete lineage sorting".   Where have I heard of that before? Roses!

Anyway if you want to know about the genetics of Crepis foetida and other species in this group, a PHD thesis by a lady from Libya was done at the University of Giessen in Germany and its conclusions make interesting reading even if the detailed genetics are in my case, above my pay grade and understanding.

http://geb.uni-giessen.de/geb/volltexte/2017/12573/pdf/EsklualGhalia_2017_02_20.pdf

I think the conclusion of her work, is that Crepis foetida subsp. foetida and Crepis foetida subsp. rhoeadifolia should remain as sub-species but that the third subsp. Crepis foetida subsp. commutata should be regarded as a separate species Crepis commutata. 

Where both subspecies grow together, intermediates do occur. Having said that, in many places there are distinctive features that separate the two subspecies. Flower size is 20-30mm diameter in rhoeadifolia and 15-25mm in foetida, the outer phyllaries (involucral bracts) are longer in rhoeadifolia and also wider being 1-1.5mm wide against only up to 0.75mm in foetida. Both lack the translucent scales on the receptacle that are present on Crepis commutata. In practice, the outer phyllaries of subsp. foetida can be up to 1.25 mm wide at Rye Harbour.

Description.

First impressions were that this was not like any of the normal species found in Cambridge. The capitulum had a rather wide onion shape and it was still in flower at this late date. The flowers were up to 32mm in diameter, bright yellow with some red banding on outer ligules.  Plants had a basal rosette of leaves and several stems with few middle and upper leaves which branch to support the flower heads.

The first photo above shows structure and some flower buds are drooping, although at this stage most flowers are beyond the 'drooping in bud' stage and are held upright. The involucre, stems and leaves all had simple grey hairs which gave the plants a grey look.

The first plant, found beside the path with prominent white pappas extending well beyond the phyllaries.

Typical plant showing many upright stems and the greyish look.

 Crepis vesicaria ( Beaked Hawk's-beard) had long ago finished flowering and even its seed heads had lost their achenes. Crepis biennis (Rough Hawk's-beard), although later than vesicaria, had also finished flowering, except for a few late examples. Crepis capillaris (Smooth Hawk's-beard) was still in flower but with much smaller flowers.

Comparison of C. biennis  against Crepis foetida subsp. rhoeadifolia showing wide capitulum and 
very prominent white pappus. 25th July 2023. 

 Jonathan had also spotted that the outer achenes were a shorter length and less beaked compared to all the inner ones. This is a feature which excludes all native Crepis except for a sub-species of C. vesicaria called Stellata, a native of Morocco which according to Sell and Murrell, has been found in Cambridgeshire. There would be some doubt over this tentative identification, which is named subsp. gigantea in Alan Leslie's Flora of Cambridgeshire.  Stellata did not fit with the plants at Hobson's Park but it took some time to exclude it. It has according to Sell and Murell, involucral bracts with dense , long and short , greenish or dark glandular hairs. It also has discoloured stigma.

Achenes of subsp. rhoeadifolia.

The shorter outer achenes are clasped by the inner involucral bracts (phyllaries).  

Shorter outer achenes are held in the involucral bracts long after the longer inner achenes have blown away.
Note the cillate hairs on the receptacle. 

Flowers.

Note the yellow stigma matching the yellow of the ligules. Some darkening did occur as the flowers aged. The diameter of flowers was up to 33mm which fits the range of rhoeadifolia against foetida which has range 15-25mm.

Variation in the amount of straight simple white/grey hairs present on the phyllaries (involucral bracts) with most plants having quite dense white/grey hairs. The outer bracts are held quite close and some are quite long and the longest well over 50% of the inner bracts. This is another feature of the subspecies rhoeadifolia.

Outer bracts are very variable in length but the longest are well over 50% of the inner.

Phyllaries have simple grey hairs and cobwebby hairs. At this stage the phyllaries are starting to spread in the cup and saucer shape typical of some Crepis species.

Leaves.

Basal rosette of leaves.

The basal leaves of some Crepis species can be highly variable and highly complex. Crepis biennis ( Rough Hawk's-beard) being especially variable making leaf shape not very useful as an identification feature. It would appear that Crepis foetida has a more consistent basal leaf shape in that the basal leaves have a spade shaped tip which tapers down to its base, with triangular lobes at least for British illustrations of both sub-species. This may not be true over its whole range, as a publication on Bulgarian Flora has illustrations which show a much more irregular shape.

Crepis foetida ssp. rhoedifolia.

Mid Stem leaf . A more pointed version of the basal leaf.

Many hundred plants present at this site suggests it has been present for several years. It has also spread into the adjacent field.

Differences between the two sub-species foetida and rhoeadifolia. 

Not having seen foetida in the wild, puts me at a major disadvantage, so maybe next year a trip down to Rye in Sussex would be a good idea. Strangely, the re-introduction program of C. foetida subsp. foetida used plants grown at the Cambridge Botanic Gardens, however none seem to have escaped and the area around has been well covered over many years.

Rhoeadifolia can grow to 80cm whereas foetida is usually limited to 50cm. It would appear from photos of foetida at Dungeness and Rye, that it is often a smaller plant and may be greener and not so grey. Maybe the density of the grey hairs on the leaves, is a particular feature of the Hobson's Park population. 

Photo Cartoon showing ID features to separate the two sub-species.

C. foetida subsp. foetida

C. foetida subsp. rhoedifolia

Hopefully the above photos help to document this sub-species, which was a great find by Jonathan Shanklin and he has written up a short account for the April 2024 edition of BSBI News.  

Peter Leonard

Rampton, Cambridgeshire.

November 2023

UPDATE.

Visit to Rye Harbour in August 2024 was really too late in the season, but some brown remains of plants were seen of subspecies foetida. Many plants were quite small compared to the rhoedifolia plants in Cambridge, the largest is in following photo.

 Crepis foetida subsp. foetida. 

Seed head of subsp. foetida. Rye Harbour 16th Aug 2024

Inner fully beaked achene of subsp. foetida.

Outer row (less beaked) achene held within inner phyllary.

These would appear to be same as the achene of the subsp. rhoeadifolia. 

Further Update in June 2025.

Examination of plants of subsp. foetida from Rye Harbour in early June found the glandular hairs on the phyllaries were very hard to see and only 1-5% of hairs had a glandular blob of liquid. Best place to see glandular hairs was at the tips of the inner phyllaries where they were most frequent.  None were seen on the stem. However by Mid-June many more glandular hairs were present suggesting that these glandular hairs develop to protect the seeds as they mature or maybe just more rain?

Close up of phyllaries from 19th June showing glandular hairs.

Another problem with the above photo cartoon is that, in practice the outer phyllaries of subsp. foetida at Rye could be up to 1.25mm wide rather than limited to 0.75mm based on a very small sample. 

Outer phyllary (Involucral bract) can be up to 1.25mm on Rye Harbour plants, Scale bars 0.5mm.

Crepis foetida subsp. foetida flower head. 3rd June.

Phyllaries show long grey hairs and cobwebby grey hairs on the surface but limited glandular long hairs except for some hairs at the tip of in inner phyllaries which had yellow blobs showing.

Inner phyllaries had some glandular hairs near tip, also the tips appear darker due to the tiny black dots.

3rd June. Two plants showing drooping buds.

As the buds develop they turn to face upwards.  The lower leaves of subspecies foetida had very thin sections between the lobes with the leaf surface cut back to the stem in some places. The terminal lobe is large and the whole leaf is hairy. The lower basal leaves tend to turn brown at flowering.

Lower leaf of foetida subsp. foetida. 3rd June.

C. foetida subsp. rhoedifolia basal leaves. 19th June 2025. Cambridge. 

The basal leaves of the subsp. rhoedifolia at the Cambridge site did not show the very narrow sections of subsp. foetida but had more regular triangular lobes but again the large terminal lobe was prominent.

The leaf shape may vary in Eastern Europe as indicated by various flora, so caution needed when comparing leaf shapes on any new populations if found. 

The subsp. rhoedifolia appears to flower about 3-4 weeks later than the subsp. foetida at Rye.

Conclusion.

On June 19th 2025 the Cambridge site was visited and at least 40 plants were found, much fewer than in 2023 but still surviving in very dry conditions. Some local spread has occurred from the original site up to about 250m and might expand further if disturbed ground is available.

As subspecies some overlap in features might be expected but it would appear than several features can identify these two being:-

Flower diameter. Typically foetida has flowers up to 20mm diameter whereas rhoedifolia is up to 30mm, even slight more.

Length of outer phyllaries. Good to look at more than a single flower but recent photographs show much longer outer phyllaries present in rhoedifolia.

Subsp. rhoedifolia showing some long outer phyllaries.

Width of outer phyllaries.  Photos and measurement has shown some overlap with subsp. foetida having widths up to 1.25mm however typical rhoedifolia has some phyllaries at 1.5mm or more.   

Phyllaries having glandular hairs. This feature may be hard to see and on a very small sample seems to develop as the flower matures, but foetida has them and rhoedifolia does not. 

Add in later flowering. Finally always worth checking the receptacle just in case you find scales which would indicate Crepis commutata.

Comparison shot.

Crepis foetida subsp. foetida showing glandular hairs. Note these are do not have a separate spherical cell ( the gland) at the top but are a single celled stalk which produce a secretion. This can dry out making these 'glandular' hairs hard to see.

June 2025.

   

Crepis commutata,  showing scales between the achenes. April 26, Crete.

Crepis Commutata, April 2026 Crete.

For more details of Crepis Commutata see separate blog.

  

Hieracium aviicola Many-toothed Hawkweed

 Hieracium aviicola   Many-toothed Hawkweed    Devils Ditch. Newmarket Heath.

Hawkweed on Devils Ditch, Newmarket Heath, Cambridgeshire.

There is a new Hawkweed book, Hawkweeds of South-East England by Mike Shaw recently published by the BSBI. It builds on the previous work by Vincent Jones with the ground breaking Yorkshire Hawkweeds published by the Yorkshire Natualists Union, now out of print.  Between these two books a large number of the hawkweeds in England can now be identified in theory. In practice the identification of Hawkweeds remains difficult. I had an advantage when shown this Hawkweed, in that I was with Alan Leslie (who has recently written the new Flora of Cambridgeshire, RHS 2019) and he knew what species it was. He had seen it in the past at this site and also knew that Peter Sell ( Co-author of Flora of Great Britain and Ireland, vols 1-5) had been involved in the original confirmation. Peter Sell was a great enthusiast and expert on Hawkweeds. He grew many Hawkweed species in the Cambridge Botanic Gardens to study them in detail.

The question is could I have, as a 'Hawkweed beginner' identified it myself, based on the photos I had taken?

Both books on Hawkweeds have keys and both books cover H. aviicola. I used the South-East England book as a test.

The first item in any Hawkweed identification is to check whether the plant has basal leaves when in flower and then the number of stem leaves. The photo above shows the basal leaves are certainly present and in full health. The single stem has three stem leaves and a fourth that might be regarded as a inflorescence bract. There is also a higher bract. The count of stem leaves plus inflorescence bracts going up one stem path is important, as the first question in the Key is are there more or less than eight.

We have five (maybe six) here.

The other factor is: Does the plant look well, robust and undamaged? - It does. 

Next key question is: Are the leaves covered in glandular hairs to exclude a group called Amplexicaulia?

Basal leaves.

These basal leaves have a few white hairs mainly along the margin and very few on the lamina surface.

So not Amplexicaulia.  Note the  basal leaves have quite a long petiole and have quite short teeth.

The next question relates to number of stem leaves. 

Stem leaves 0-1(2) : basal leaves numerous  in which case go to Hieracium group.

Stem leaves 2-8 : basal leaves usually few in which case go to group Oreadea or Vulgata.

We have about 5 stem leaves/bracts so looks like we can exclude Hieracium group. Also basal leaves are few but this seems a bit vague and a number would be better.

Oreadea has phyllaries that have predominant eglandular hairs whereas Vulgata has a mixture of eglandular and glandular hairs but glandular hairs usually predominant.

Glandular hairs predominant.

Phyllaries clearly are covered in glandular hairs so it looks as if the Hawkweed we have here is in the Vulgata group.

We hit two problems at this stage, one is that there are a lot of species in the Vulgata group and some are grouped together as aggregates as they are so similar. This is where the Vulgata key in the South-East England book fails, as its key does not include the aggregate groups ( H. maculate agg. , H. diaphanous agg., and  H. acuminatum agg.). These groups are covered but not linked by the key.

Fortunately in the Yorkshire book, Vulgata key does include aggregate groups (on page 101). 

I now use the Yorkshire book and its key.

Leaves unspotted takes us onto phyllaries with predominant glandular hairs and then we get into real detail. 

The next key split is dependent on the density of stellate hairs on the phyllaries. The photo above does show some stellate hairs but more magnification is needed.

Stellate hairs ( I normally call these cobwebby hairs)

Stellate hairs are certainly present especially on the margins of the phyllaries which moves us onto

the next question. Do the upper stem leaves have stellate hairs present on the lower surface? 

Lots of simple white hairs but no sign of any stellate hairs on the lower surface.

At this point the size of the teeth on the leaves come in and section 9 of the key gives following choice:-

Leaves entire to denticulate or with small teeth.                                            10

Leaves obviously dentate, often with mammiform teeth.                               H. acuminate agg.

-entire is lacking teeth, 

-denticulate means with regular small fine patent teeth, evenly spaced.

-dentate  means with large more or less patent teeth.

-mammiform with more or less rounded teeth which can vary in size and are pointed at the tip.

First problem here is what leaves are they referring to , basal leaves or stem leaves. I assume stem leaves. The basal leaves have quite small teeth but the stem leaves have quite pronounced teeth.

I would regard the teeth on the above stem leaf is large and pointed so I think we have arrived at 

H. acuminate agg. Having said that, there was a population of about 20 plants and there was quite a lot of variation in teeth size.

Whether we should just stop at H. acuminatum agg. rather than try and spit this group further is a good question. We all know that plants within a species can vary considerably in various features but strangely many Hieracium 'species' apparently have very little variation and this is some ways justifies their status as species.  It would seem we have been using quite tiny changes to arrive at H. acuminate agg.  The justification for continuing to split further would have to be based on consistent features over a geographical range. This would appear to be the case for these vulgata hawkweeds, which is the case of H. aviicola are widely recorded across England and Wales.

 These species reproduce by selfing, i.e. producing clones.  As a hawkweed beginner, all I can do is see how far I can go using these new books and see if I can work out  if the description and photos I have taken tie up with the description in the literature. 

The following species make up the H. acuminatum agg. :-

(H. acuminatum)    

H. consociatum

H. argillaceum

H. aviicola

H. nemophilum

H. chlorophyllum

H. festinum

H. cheriense

No Key is provided in the South-East England book but the Yorkshire book does cover the five species seen in Yorkshire, which includes H. aviicola. The leaf shape and dentition seems to be the main difference.

Basal leaf shows quite limited teeth 

Lower stem leaves seem to vary in the amount of teeth depending on what plant you look at.

This example has very limited teeth but is does vary from leaf to leaf.

Mid-stem leaf  July 2020 Devils Ditch. Newmarket.

A different plant in the same population has teeth that are very narrow and quite long.

The key talks about the teeth being longer than 6mm ( up to 10mm on stem leaves) or less than 6mm.

I think the plants at the Devils Ditch are typically below 6mm which leaves H. argillaceum, H. aviicola, and H. nemophilum.  At this point the very first photo shows the stem leaves gradually decreasing in size upwards which fits with H. aviicola. Result, happiness!- but the differences between these three species is very small in the terms of the key descriptions. 

In practice I looked at other features not in the key, to confirm the identification by reading the notes and photos about H. aviicola is both books.  The leaves tend to taper at both ends which fits in with the choice of all three species in the sub-group. 'The inflorescence with long lower branches from the leaf axils and with the lower peduncles making a wide angle with the stem and the upper being more or less erect, giving a large, broad panicle' fits well with H. aviicola and this is apparent in the structure seen in the very first photo and the photo below. However I lack experience of the other two species.

Styles are stated to be yellow in the Yorkshire and the South-East England books, so that matches with photo below.

Yellow stigma

In truth, without knowing what the species at the start ( thanks to Alan Leslie),   I would have struggled, in this final stage to get to the right result.  In reality you would need a lot of hard earned practice to get the expertise required.  This is hard to achieve but both books give sites where you can observe the various species and that it probably the only way to improve one's knowledge.  Both these regional books have great photos of example plants and these give as much insight as the keys, when you get close to the solution. Sometimes keys fail however and then a more multi-feature approach is needed.

 Early days but I have learnt a bit more on the detail needed to identify these difficult Hawkweeds. I suspect that this Vulgata group are not the easiest to make a start with. Without the books by Vince Jones and Mike Shaw I would not stand a chance. 

Resources:-

Hawkweeds of South-East England by Mike Shaw, BSBI Handbook No 20.

Yorkshire Hawkweeds by Vincent Jones , Yorkshire Naturalists' Union.

Flora of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol 4 by Peter Sell and Gina Murrell.   

Pedicles have stellate and glandular hairs.  7th July 2020

Peter Leonard

Rampton, Cambridgeshire.

22nd January 2021