One of the more challenging areas in plant identification, even for experienced botanists, is the yellow-flowered ‘composites’, members of the daisy and dandelion family (formerly the Compositae, now the Asteraceae).
Now, in early September 2025, one of these, autumn hawkbit, is flowering in quantity in grasslands across Assynt, as here at Nedd (photo 1). The bright yellow heads of flowers are about an inch (2.5cm) across (photo 2) and borne on branched stems.
If you look closely at the flowers on the edge of the heads, you can see that the ends of the individual, strap-shaped, florets (to be precise) are cut into teeth, which represent the five fused petals. This is a feature of many of their relatives.
Identification, relatives and distribution
Autumn hawkbit can be distinguished from look-alikes by the reddish colour of the underside of the florets (photo 3), and also by the shape of the edges of the leaves (photo 4), which form a basal rosette. In this case they are just wavy, but they can have deep backwardly pointing lobes, as in this line illustration (photo 5) from Stella Ross-Craig’s fine series Drawings of British Plants (1960-1963).
This species was once called Leontodon autumnalis, but its scientific name is now the rather more cumbersome Scorzoneroides autumnalis. One of its close relatives, lesser hawkbit Leontodon saxatilis, was first noticed on a roadside at Newton in Assynt in 2011, and is now known to occur on the A894 over Skiag and on the coastal B869 as far west as Gleann Leireag (see Lesser hawkbit on the move). It may be recognized by the greyish-violet underside to the florets and forked ends to the hairs on the surface of the leaves (which requires the use of a hand lens).
Autumn hawkbit is a remarkably widespread plant in Assynt, occurring from saltmarshes on the coast to grasslands high on the hills. At this time of year, it provides an important source of nectar for many pollinating insects, especially flies (photo 6).
Ian M.Evans