groundsel
plant
also called ragwort
any of about 1,200 species of annual, biennial, and perennial herbs, shrubs, trees, and climbers constituting the genus Senecio of the family Asteraceae, distributed throughout the world. Some species are cultivated as border plants or houseplants, and many species contain alkaloids that are poisonous to grazing animals.
Members of the genus have yellow flower heads that usually are composed of disk and ray flowers. Bracts (leaflike structures) are located below the yellow, red, purple, blue, or white flower heads. Ragwort, or tansy ragwort (S. jacobaea; see photograph-->); cineraria, or dusty miller (S. cineraria); and golden ragwort (S. aureus) are cultivated as border plants. German ivy (S. mikanoides) and florists cineraria (S. cruentus) are popular houseplants. Some botanists now prefer to divide this large and diverse genus into a number of segregated genera.