Source:
SSA
Description:
Stiffly erect, perennial herbs with milky latex, with long, stout taproot. Stems annual, usually divaricately branched above, striate, densely hispid-setose to glabrescent. Leaves alternate, often rosulate, pinnatifid or coarsely toothed. Capitula ligulate, solitary or few together in sessile axillary clusters, spicately arranged along branches. Involucre cylindrical; bracts in 2 rows. Receptacle flat, epaleate. Florets bisexual; corolla strap-shaped, blue, rarely pink or white. Anthers sagittate at base, auricles mucronate-acuminate. Style with branches long, slender, obtuse and with sweeping hairs long. Cypselas obovoid-obconical, obscurely 5-angled, smooth, glabrous. Pappus of minute, rounded-obtuse scales. x = 9 (8, 10) (polyploidy).
Distribution:
Species 8, Europe, Mediterranean region, Ethiopia; *Cichorium intybus L., cultivated in some parts of sthn Afr., now exists as a fairly widespread escape near cultivation, known from North-West, Gauteng, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape.
Classification:
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