What have I dug up here?

[MrsBertBibby]

I pulled this thinking it was a weed, but now I'm not sure, so have shoved it in a pot.

Bearing in mind I lovingly nurtured a very healthy willlow-herb last spring..... Oh the shame when it finally flowered and revealed itself!

Very long thready root, and quite hairy leaves. I'm sure I know it, but I can't think what it is.

Another suggestion from the App although this time I may concur! I thought it looked lettuce-like from the beginning!

Second app says....

Too hairy for primrose. Leaves not toothed, so not foxglove/Digitalis purpurea. Wrong shaped leaf for burdock which has a cordate (heart shaped) leaf base. Id be looking at something in the forget-me-not family or perhaps Asteraceae (which would include Rudbeckia, Echinacea etc)

My Mum was a master gardener in her younger years and she says it's definitely in the Primula family

I shall laugh my socks off if it turns out to be an echinacea, I have yet to get one to survive long enough to flower!

Not bitter lettuce, wrong vein pattern. Picris hieracoides is a plant of chalk grassland, so whether that’s likely depends on where you are.

Granny ask your mum why she is so certain, given there’s no floral characters to go on, and it’s the floral characters that define the family. The same Leaf characters pop up in different families, which is why we have contenders from Primulaceae, Asteraceae, Boraginaceae and Scrophulariaceae. Is there something specific she can see in this leaf that pins it down to Primulaceae?

Could be Verbena bonariensis... 🤔

We are, as it happens, just below a site where chalk grassland is being restored, so I guess it could be.

We do have a lot of some kind of ABC yellow flowers in the "lawn" which this might be. So perhaps some kind of hawkweed or other.

It's quite liking its pot.

An echium seedling?

Will end up massive if an echium

Oh now, I had a vipers bugloss last year, quite far away. Could it be that? I doubt it's the monster echium, never seen one round here.

Possibly. I’ve just been to look at mine. The hairs are bristly rather than soft, and the some of hairs on the leaf surfaces have swollen bases that look like tiny whitish green spots. But given that you actually have VB it’s probably the best guess yet

Well definitely not any kind of echium.

Here it is now. I am on tenterhooks waiting to see what I am nurturing. Any more guesses?

No, not an echium or anything else in the forget-me-not family. At first sight I thought Daisy family, but the likely candidates - cornflower, knapweed, scabious - all have beautifully black and green patterned buds. Which leaves me with Lychnis coronaria. But it doesn’t seem to have enough of a basal rosette for that. So back to Daisy family, maybe Cats ear, but that’s bristly rather than softly hairy. I’d want to see that flower a bit more advanced before coming to a conclusion.

I am betting some kind of yellow composite, just because I want something more unusual to put in our meadow bit, and I won't be that lucky.

Wahey! It was a centaurea!

Going to plant it in our meadow area, and hopefully, it'll self seed for next year.

So pleased I didn't give all that love to a random yellow composite 😂

Fantastic! Lovely plant.

Knapweed!