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Taraxacum bracteatum Dahlst., a dandelion

The solitary Fermanagh record of this medium-sized to robust microspecies with erect, flat, dark green, heterophyllous leaves was collected on 27 March 1975 on a roadside verge near Glenwinny Hill, 2 km NE of Derrygonnelly. The voucher has the Accession Number H5019, det A.J. Richards 1975. T. bracteatum is a widespread dandelion in both B & I, although it is very much more frequently recorded in Britain than in Ireland. It is rarer in N Scotland than elsewhere in Britain and usually grows in damp habitats similar to those of T. gelertii, along the banks of lanes, moist roadside verges, humid meadows and woodland margins, rarely in weedy situations (Richards 2021).

T. bracteatum has been rarely collected in Ireland and particularly so in comparison with Britain. In the Dandelion Handbook, there were only four Irish VCs where it has been recorded and they were extremely widely scattered across the island, from Co Wexford (H12) to West Galway (H16) and from Fermanagh (H33) to Co Antrim (H39) (Dandelion Handbook, Map 31). There has been active recording since then and in the 2021 Field Handbook the hectad map now features around 22 Irish squares with records widely scattered across the whole island. T. bracteatum is said to be also widely distributed across much of Europe (Richards 2021).

References

Field Handbook; Dandelion Handbook