Erect, hairy plant to 2 metres. Stem usually unbranched, red below and with red based hairs above. Leaves elliptical, the lower broadest above the middle and in a rosette. The stem leaves mostly lanceolate, but decreasing in size up the stem, the uppermost bract like. Flowers yellow, small, 14 to 18 mm in dense leafy spike whose tip nods somewhat when young. Sepals green at first but becoming streaked with red.

The County Recorder has asked for a specimen of this plant to be retained for verification

Open habitats, waste and disturbed ground.

Flowers June to September.

Annual or biennial.

Local and infrequent in most of Britain, with most records coming from south Wales and southern England.

Rare or under recorded in Leicestershire and Rutland. It was not recorded in the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire.