Say it 5 times fast...

This is one of my favourite springtime plants. It's one of the first to pop up, covers many of the highway shoulders around here, and has an awesome latin name - Tussilago farfara (Coltsfoot).

It may look dandelion-like, but it is very different. It flowers before any leaves are produced above ground, has a leafy "stipe" (floral stem), and produces two types of flowers. Huh????? Why plural????

Members of the Aster family (Asteraceae), including sunflowers, have highly modified inflorescences - a head. The "flower" is actually an inflorescence that may comprise two flower types - "ray" and "disk." Dandelion "heads" are all ray flowers. Sunflowers are ray flowers on the outside ("petals") and disk flowers on the inside (seed producing flowers). Coltsfoot also produces ray flowers (outer strap shaped petals) and disk flowers (look closely in the centre).

So there you have it. Not a flower, but an inflorescence, and don't even get me started on sunflower "seeds"...