SONCHUS ARVENSIS weed

When the spring starts its activity, weed are visible at once on the surface of the ground. They are usually small, delicate and so beautiful but it's very hard to throw they our gardens out. Nor from OFG:(

Is not sonchus arvensis beautiful? 

Dandelion. Fractal created by Lynn. She used Fractal Explorer.

Sonchus arvensis, the field milk thistle, field sowthistle, perennial sow-thistle, corn sow thistle, dindle, gutweed, swine thistle, or tree sow thistle, is a species of flowering plant in the daisy family Asteraceae. S. arvensis often occurs in annual crop fields and may cause substantial yield losses.

                        

Sonchus arvensis. Fractal created by Krys. She used Incendia

The plant grows up to 1.5 metres in height, with leaves 10-35 cm long and 4–14 cm wide.It produces conspicuous yellow flowerheads about 3–5 cm

 wide, which are visited by various types of insects—especially hoverflies of the genus Eristalis.

Sonchus arvensis is native to Europe, where it is widespread across most of the continent. It has also become naturalized in many other regions, and is considered an invasive noxious weed in some places, such as North America (including Prince Edward Island), Russia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Australia.

It grows in areas such as pastures, roadsides, bushlands and the shorelines of lakes, rivers and sea coast.

USES

The young leaves, when less than a few inches long and not bitter in taste, can be mixed with other greens to make salad. They can also be boiled in a small quantity of water, changed once. The plant can contain toxic nitrates.