Sonchus asper(L.) Hill

prickly sowthistle

WFO wfo-0000031264 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Sonchus asper, photographed by Anne Thomson
fig. a Anne Thomson, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-09 / obs. 204863555
Sonchus asper, photographed by mefisher
fig. b mefisher, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205021352
Sonchus asper, photographed by Randy A Nonenmacher
fig. c Randy A Nonenmacher, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204909676
Sonchus asper, photographed by Michel Langeveld
fig. d Michel Langeveld, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204363421
Sonchus asper, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. e Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203556030
Sonchus asper, photographed by Jon Mortin
fig. f Jon Mortin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205464369
Sonchus asper, photographed by Joe Dillon
fig. g Joe Dillon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203786116
Sonchus asper, photographed by gerardbertrand
fig. h gerardbertrand, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204698530

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 3,446 observations

Peak flowering in Apr, from 3,446 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 61 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Sonchus aemulus Merino
  • Sonchus arvensis var. nymanii (Tineo & Guss.) Arcang.
  • Sonchus asper All.
  • Sonchus asper Garsault
  • Sonchus asper (L.) Vill.
  • Sonchus asper f. asper
  • Sonchus asper subsp. euasper Hayek
  • Sonchus asper var. asper
  • Sonchus asper var. glanduliferus Garrett
  • Sonchus asper var. glaucescens (Jord.) Batt.
  • Sonchus asper var. horridus Schur
  • Sonchus asper var. inermis Bisch.
  • Sonchus asper var. integer Schur
  • Sonchus asper var. integrifolius Lej.
  • Sonchus asper var. orientalis Degen
  • Sonchus asper var. pinnatisectus Lojac.
  • Sonchus asper var. pinnatus Schur
  • Sonchus asper var. pungens Bisch.
  • Sonchus asper var. rigidus Baumg.
  • Sonchus asper var. sabulosus P.D.Sell
  • Sonchus asper var. setosoglandulosus Hausm.
  • Sonchus asper var. simplicifolius Schur
  • Sonchus asper var. spinosus Neilr.
  • Sonchus asper var. sulphureus Boiss.

and 37 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.