Flowers and Flower-Heads of Hawkweeds

Hieracium or Hawkweeds, like the others in the Asteraceae family have mostly yellow, tightly packed flower-heads of numerous small flowers but unlike daisies and sunflowers in the same family, they have not two kinds of florets but only strap-shaped (spatulate) florets, each one of which is a complete flower in itself, not lacking stamens,[11] and joined to the stem by leafy bracts. Like other tribe Cichorieae members each ray corolla is tipped by 3 to 5 teeth.[8]

Erect single, glabrous or hairy stems, sometimes branched away from the point of attachment, sometimes branched throughout.

The hairiness of Hawkweeds can be very complex: from surfaces with scattered to crowded, tapered, whiplike, straight or curly, smooth to setae; "stellate-pubescent" or surfaces with scattered to crowded, dendritically branched (often called, but seldom truly, "stellate") hairs; and "stipitate-glandular" or surfaces with scattered to crowded gland-tipped hairs mostly. Surfaces of stems, leaves, peduncles, and phyllaries may be glabrous or may bear one, two, or all three of the types of hairs mentioned here.

Like the others in the Asteraceae family have milky juice when either the leaves or the stems are broken.




Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieracium#Flowers_and_flower-heads

See also: Florist, Florists, Flower