English: Tarweed fiddleneck.
Synonym: Amsinckia parviflora.
Name: Fiddlenecks; form the flowers curling over at the top like the head of a fiddle.
Genus: ± 12 species; 4 tpo 5 in C Asia; 2 species in China.
Region: North America, south-western South America, Europe; naturalized on the Farne Islands, N.E. Britain.
Habitat: dry open slopes and flats, often in disturbed soil; hully hardy; prefers well drained, moist, light, sandy, medium, loamy, heavy, clay soils; prefers full sun, cannot grow in the shade.
Content: alkaloids and high concentrations of nitrates
Use: seeds and foliage are poisonous to livestock, particularly cattle; leaves, fresh juicy shoots and raw seeds for food; seeds parched, ground for cakes.

BotanyHerb; annual, bristly; 20 to 120 cm.
Stem: erect.
Leaves: alternate; with sharp hairs, causing skin irritation.
Inflorescence: cymes bracteate or ebracteate on lower part.
Flowers: yellow, with an orange tinge; sessile or short pedicellate; calyx 5-parted; lobes erect, lanceolate-linear, somewhat enlarged in fruit, subtending fruit, hirsute; corolla long tubular, slightly thickened distally; throat without appendages, sometimes with scalelike emergences alternate with corolla lobes; limb 5-parted; lobes vertical or spreading, triangular to ovate; stamens inserted at middle of corolla tube, with exserted long filaments and linear-oblong anthers; ovary 4-parted; style exserted from corolla, entire at apex; stigma capitate or dotlike; gynobase narrowly fastigiate.
Pollination: by insects.
Fruit: nutlets oblong, glabrous, with cupular emergence abaxially; margin of emergence narrowly winged, entire or dentate; attachment scar at base adaxially.
Seeds ovoid, dorsiventrally compressed.