ASTERACEAE  

Perennial herbs with red-tipped roots. Leaves alternate, serrate or pinnatifid. Capitula radiate, solitary, pedunculate. Involucre hemispherical or campanulate. Receptacle convex or sometimes conical, epaleate. Rayflorets female, fertile; lamina white. Discflorets bisexual, fertile; corolla yellow, 5-lobed; tube basally swollen and spongy in fruit, especially abaxially. Anthers ecalcarate and ecaudate; with ovate apical appendage. Style branches narrowly oblong, truncate, penicillate. Cypselas +/- 10-ribbed with vallecular lacunae and vallecular secretory canals as well as vascular strands between ribs, with myxogenic cells along ribs. Pappus a corona or an adaxial auricle, sometimes 0. x = 9 (aneuploids, high polyploidy, B-chromosomes).

Annual, biennial or perennial herbs, glabrous, with milky latex. Stems erect or prostrate, simple or branched. Leaves mostly in rosettes, sinuate, coarsely toothed or pinnatifid. Capitula ligulate, few- to several-flowered, pedunculate or occasionally sessile, solitary or in lax, irregular corymbs, or clustered. Involucres campanulate or cylindrical; bracts in 2 to several rows, becoming +/- swollen and corky towards base, innermost subequal, usually exceeding outer. Receptacle epaleate. Florets bisexual, fertile; corolla yellow, strap-shaped; tube slender, cylindric; ligule short, 4- or 5-toothed. Anthers sagittate at base, auricles acute or shortly setaceous-acuminate; with lanceolate, apical appendage. Style linear, terete, and pubescent above, with linear, obtuse or subobtuse branches, sweeping hairs long. Cypselas usually ellipsoid-fusiform or terete, often somewhat compressed, ribbed, sometimes apically attenuate or beaked, rugose or verrucose, rough or smooth. Pappus of bristles in many rows, or of bristles intermixed with many down-like hairs. x = 9 (4, 6, 7, 8, 13) (polyploidy, B-chromosomes).

Annual herbs, small, prostrate and woolly. Leaves alternate, sessile, small, oblong to spathulate, obtuse, base narrowed, margins flat, entire, loosely enveloped in wool (hair type B), eglandular. Capitula disciform, campanulate, closely surrounded by leaves, massed in glomerules at branchlet tips; flowers whitish, often tipped reddish. Involucralbracts in 2 or 3 rows; apex obtuse to truncate, often emarginate, whitish to straw-coloured; stereome divided. Receptacle shortly honeycombed or shallowly tuberculate, epaleate. Marginalflorets female, narrowly tubular or filiform, fewer than, more than or equalling disc florets. Discflorets bisexual; corolla tubular below, campanulate above, with 5 deltoid lobes; all lobes glandular-hairy on backs. Anthers caudate, ecalcarate, with small, obtuse apical appendage; endothecial tissue polarised. Style bifid; style branches truncate and penicillate, obtuse sweeping hairs scarcely extending down backs of branches. Cypselas oblong, usually with minute globular duplex hairs, or ellipsoidal unicellular; all myxogenic. Pappus bristles in 1 row, either wholly plumose or with clavate cells at tip and shaft wholly or partly plumose, subplumose, barbellate or nude, when not plumose, base with patent cilia, or bristles expanded in lowest quarter and fused at base. x = 7.

Shrublets, glabrous except for loose cobwebby tomentum in leaf axils and on adaxial sides of young leaves. Leaves alternate, sessile, simple, linear, base half-clasping, subcarnose or coriaceous, mucronate. Capitula discoid, terminal, solitary, +/- 15-30-flowered; peduncle long. Involucre ecalyculate, cupuliform to narrowly campanulate; involucral bracts 11-13, in 1 row, equal, free from base, linear-lanceolate. Receptacle flat, epaleate. Discflorets bisexual, fertile; corolla tubular, probably red with yellowish base, glabrous; lobes narrowly triangular, thickish, with involute margins and subcucullate tips. Anthers ecalcarate and ecaudate or minutely sagittate, with flat, acute, narrowly triangular appendage; endothecial cells with thickenings on longitudinal and transverse walls. Style terete, basally swollen; style branches stout with continuous stigmatic areas, apically with oblong-triangular, obtuse-subacute, minutely papillate appendage. Cypselas narrowly oblong, obscurely 5-angular, brown, eventually black, covered with small, whitish, mucilaginous, papilliform hairs. Pappus bristles copious, in many rows, persistent, laxly and minutely serrulate, glossy white.

Annual, biennial or perennial, acaulescent or caulescent herbs with milky latex. Leaves alternate or radical; cauline leaves often auriculate-amplexicaul, entire, coarsely toothed or pinnatifid, glabrous. Capitula ligulate, solitary to corymbose or panicled. Involucres cylindric; bracts in several rows, elongating in fruiting stage. Receptacle flat, epaleate, alveolate. Florets ligulate,bisexual, fertile; corolla yellow, whitish purple or blue, strap-shaped, tube cylindric, with tuft of hairs below lamina; lamina shortly 3-5-lobed. Anthers linear, sagittate at base, auricles acute or shortly setaceous-acuminate; with lanceolate apical appendage. Style linear, sometimes terete above, pubescent on upper portion; branches linear, subobtuse, sweeping hairs long. Cypselas flattened, elliptic-oblong to obovate, ribbed, glabrous or scabrid-hispid, generally with distinct slender to filiform beak. Pappus of many fine, smooth or scabrid bristles. x = 9 (6, 8, 17) (polyploidy, B-chromosomes).