Taraxacum hamatum Raunk., a dandelion

The botanical term 'hamate' refers to leaf-lobes (or the basal lobules of terminal leaf-lobes) that are recurved or hooked and have a distal margin that is ± convex, while the proximal margin is concave.

T. hamatum mostly occupies shady sites in semi-natural and other types of woodland, scrub, banks of lanes plus on walls. It appears to frequently prefer acidic sites, although the hectad map in the Field Handbook (p. 131), shows it widely distributed throughout Britain, becoming rarer and more scattered towards the N & W of Scotland, but without any obvious relationship between distribution and pH (Richards 2021).

There are just two sites with records of T. hamatum in the Fermanagh Flora Database. The vouchers in BEL were determined by A.J. Richards in 1975 and all but H5001 were checked by him in 2008. The first site is a moss-covered gravelly roadside bank, west of Knockmore Hill, 27 March 1975. There are four vouchers with the accession numbers H5001, H5003, H5005 and H5006. The second record is given as, Lower Lough Erne shore at Slawin Td, opposite Muckinish or White Island, 28 March 1975, voucher accession number H5030, det A.J. Richards, 2008.

This is a dandelion where the Dandelion Handbook does make a clear distinction between its distribution in Britain and that in Ireland. In Britain, it is described as widespread and common throughout, but by comparison it is merely scattered in Ireland. In southern Britain, T. hamatum is locally common, while in N England and Scotland it is considered very common. There are 26 hectads on the map of Ireland in the Dandelion Handbook (Map 47), ranking it the third most frequent dandelion on the island in these terms. The 2021 Field Handbook now regards this dandelion as common and widespread throughout both islands and the map displays around 50 hectads with records in Ireland.

References

Field Handbook; Dandelion Handbook