In message , "Rev \"Fragile Warrior\""
writes

"magnetFL" wrote in message
roups.com...
Hi,

Can't tell what your "steroidal dandelion" might be without a picture
but it is definitely not a dandelion because you state that there are
"about a dozen buds" forming on a single flower stem. Dandelions have
only one flower bud per flower stem. One flower bud per flower stem is
one of the defining characteristics of dandelions.

Regards,
Rufino Osorio
Lake Worth, Florida

He's right. We have them here, too, and I mentioned them last summer in
here. Not only are there multiple heads joined together like multiple
Siamese Twins, the stem going up to the flower is abnormally wide, too, like
it is multiple stems merged together. They are dandelions. I know what a
dandelion looks like.

Giselle

What you describe is, I think, a fasciated dandelion. What the OP
describes does not sound like the same. "Giant dandelion" suggsts to me
something in the Hieracium/Crepis/Hypochoeris area; "tight cluster of
flower heads" a Sonchus (Sow Thistle), but I find the whole of Lactuceae
difficult to identify.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley