Sonchus nanus
Sond. ex Harv.
Ground thistle, Lesser milk thistle
AsteraceaeLeaves
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(c) Errol Douwes, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Errol Douwes
(c) Errol Douwes, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Errol Douwes
iNaturalist · cc-by-nc
(c) michelle_louw, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
(c) michelle_louw, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
iNaturalist · cc-by-nc
(c) michelle_louw, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
(c) michelle_louw, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
What to Eat
Edible parts: Leaves
The young leaves are cooked as a vegetable.
Where to Find It
It is a subtropical plant. It grows in open grassland. It can grow in arid places.
Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho, South Africa, Southern Africa, Swaziland,
Countries: Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Benin, Botswana, Congo (DRC), Central African Republic, Congo (Republic), Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Algeria, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Gambia, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Comoros, Liberia, Lesotho, Libya, Morocco, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan, Sao Tome & Principe, Eswatini, Chad, Togo, Tunisia, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe
How to Identify
A herb. It keeps growing from year to year. It has a woody rootstock. The leaves are at the base. The leaves are narrow and pointed and do not have a stalk. They have irregular lobes and teeth along the edge. The leaves are 12 cm long by 3 cm wide. The flower heads occur singly at the ends of the plant. They are on 20 cm long stalks. Flowers are yellow.
Names & Synonyms
Sentlokojane, Tshikaklembe, Tshikandamalembe
References (9)
- Fox, F. W. & Young, M. E. N., 1982, Food from the Veld. Delta Books. p 125
- Guillarmod, J., 1966, 1971,
- Magwede, K., van Wyk, B.-E., & van Wyk, A. E., 2019, An inventory of Vhavenḓa useful plants. South African Journal of Botany 122 (2019) 57–89
- Mogg, 1975,
- Peters, C. R., O'Brien, E. M., and Drummond, R.B., 1992, Edible Wild plants of Sub-saharan Africa. Kew. p 92
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (1999). Survey of Economic Plants for Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (SEPASAL) database. Published on the Internet; http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/ceb/sepasal/internet [Accessed 14th April 2011]
- Ruiters-Welcome, A. K., 2019, Food plants of southern Africa. Ph.D. thesis. Univ. of Johannesburg p 37
- Swaziland's Flora Database http://www.sntc.org.sz/flora
- Welcome, A. K. & Van Wyk, B.-E., 2019, An inventory and analysis of the food plants of southern Africa. South African Journal of Botany 122 (2019) 136–179
