Ragwort

Ragwort (Senecio Jacobaea), a very handsome British member of the order Compositae (q.v.), a common weed belonging to the same genus as the rayless groundsel (q.v.) and closely related to the garden Cineraria (q.v.). It derives its name from its much-divided, rather fleshy leaves. It grows three or four feet high, with a corymbose inflorescence, a foot or more across, of numerous radiate gold-yellow capitula, and, as it occurs socially on waste ground, it is very effective.