Spotted Hawkweed - Hieracium spilophaeum

Also known as Common Hawkweed. This plant has the usual yellow flowers associated with the genus, but the leaves are often deeply purple spotted.

Several other species in Sect. Vulgata have purple-spotted leaves.  

Identifying most Hieracium to species-level is extremely difficult, and can only be done from a specimen by an expert in the genus.  Stace (4th edition) separates the 415 microspecies into 15 sections which can be identified with care on the basis of leaf characteristics.

A specimen is required for verification

Rough grassland, waste areas, railway embankments and quarries.

June to August.

Perennial.

Local. Most records come from south of a line between the Humber and the Severn.

Local in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 24 of the 617 tetrads.