My thug

[ideasguy]

This plant is very pretty, and very floriferous.
Its also THE most invasive plant I have ever seen.
I got a small division from my sisters neighbour. I put it in a pot on the staging on the outside of the greenhouse where I keep plants to grow to planting size or until I figure out where to plant them.
Needless to say, some plants sit there for a year and more.

It has white thread like roots. This fellow escaped from its pot, crept stelthily along the staging and popped up in every long standing pot in that section.

Its now in the rockery and in a bed in the front garden, and I never purposely planted it out.
It seems that even though I tried to get it out of the neighbouring pots, its numerous thread like roots were lurking in the pots ready to "burst forth" again.

I did actually find its name at one time, but it escapes me at present.
Height about 10ins. This photo taken in Sept. I have another photo of it in flower in June, so a long flowering period.
When it finishes flowering it develops fluffy white seed heads like dandylions.

Anyone recognise it?

[The Gardener]

Hello Ideasguy.

Your thug is the Orange Hawkweed, Heiraceum aurantiacum.  The plant is very invasive, as you have found, and has in fact now escaped from the confines of gardens and naturalised itself on railway embankments, grass verges, etc.  There is a nice little group of it growing on a grass verge only a few yards from my garden.  As a plant, I think it's lovely - but better left in the wild!

[ideasguy]

Hello and welcome Chrissie!
I'm absolutely delighted that you have registered and joined us here, and thank you for your immediate contribution.

You are absolutely correct! That IS the plant I have.

I have to say, Ive never spotted it anywhere else on my travels. Hope mine doesnt "escape" to pollute the roadsides in the same manner as dandylions!  I wouldnt like that on my conscience.

Ive always maintained that doing a web search on a plant name always leads to a whole new result set of web sites.
True to form, I did a search on the name you gave (Hieracium aurantiacum) and found this interesting site which featured the
"mystery" plant.
http://www.plant-identification.co.uk/skye/compositae/hieracium-aurantiacum.htm

I can confirm without doubt that that is most certainly my thug!

The webmaster didn't mention (on that page) that when it finished flowering it produced that fluffy seed head like a dandylion.
They are similar to that in the the photo he's given for another species in the same genus:
http://www.plant-identification.co.uk/skye/compositae/hieracium-umbellatum-agg.htm

Backing up the the Home page:
http://www.plant-identification.co.uk
theres only one link (so far) to the page entitled:
Skye Flora
A List of flowering plants and ferns recorded as growing wild on the Isle of Skye
He's made a very good start!

Another dedicated photographer and plantlover!

Thanks for the ID Chrissie!