Medium to tall rather brittle, tufted plant, the stems exuding orange latex when broken. Leaves pinnately lobed with rounded divisions. Flowers bright yellow, 1.5 to 2.5 cm, in small umbels of 2 to 6. Capsule linear.

Bare and waste areas, often close to habitation.

April to October.

Perennial.

Fairly frequent in most of Britain though less so in Scotland; it rarely grows far from human habitation.

Frequent in Leicestershire and Rutland. The Flora of Leicestershire published in 1988 states that it occurred in 186 of the 617 tetrads.

It was on the 2011 VC55 Rare Plant Register (Jeeves, 2011) but was seriously under-recorded. Improved recording since then has meant it is found in many more sites than previously known, and it therefore does not meet the criteria for the current RPR (Hall and Woodward, 2022)