It is a yellow-flowered herbaceous plant, native to mountainous, rocky or volcanic areas, that has managed to find other homes on man-made and natural piles of rocks, war-ruined neighborhoods and dry-stone walls.

The travels of this short-lived perennial, biennial, or winter annual make it a good subject for studies of the evolution and ecology of flowering plants.

[16] This Senecio was introduced into Britain via Francesco Cupani and William Sherard in the years of their visit 1700, 1701 and 1702 from Sicily[17] where it lives as a native on volcanic ash[15] to the Duchess of Beaufort's garden at Badminton House.

The process was accelerated by the movement of the trains[19] and the limestone ballast that provides a well-drained medium which is an adequate replica of the lava-soils of its native home in Sicily.

[18][21] During the 20th century it continued to spread along railway lines and found a liking for waste places and bombed sites after World War II which have a lot in common with the volcanic regions of its home.

[9] Recently, this and other Senecio species and their differing tastes for self-incompatibility and self-compatibility have been the subject of study for the purposes of understanding the evolution of plant species as the genus finds new homes and pollen partners throughout the world: Senecio squalidus grows on scree in mountainous regions of native range,[3] and earned its common name Oxford ragwort for its willingness and ability to grow in similar habitat elsewhere in the world.