ASTERACEAE  

Annual herbs. Leaves alternate, serrate-dentate and pinnatifid, somewhat amplexicaul. Capitula radiate, pedunculate, solitary or laxly corymbose, many-flowered. Involucre campanulate; bracts in 2-4 rows, often with brown, scarious margin and sometimes membranous tip. Receptacle convex, epaleate. Rayflorets female, fertile; corolla usually white or yellow, tube usually short, with entire or toothed lamina 3 times as long as tube. Raycypselas triquetrous, laterally winged. Discflorets bisexual, fertile or sterile; corolla tube campanulate above, glandular, with 5 ovate lobes sometimes awned on back. Anthers ecalcarate and ecaudate; with ovate, apical appendage. Style with swollen base and with oblong, truncate branches. Disccypselas prismatic with narrow adaxial wing, or terete with thick undulating wall, thus apparently ribbed. Pappus 0 in both disc and ray florets. x = 9 (7, 8, 10, 17, 19) (aneuploids, high polyploidy, B-chromosomes).

Annual herbs. Leaves alternate, bipinnatisect. Capitula radiate, pedunculate, terminal or axillary. Involucre hemispheric or campanulate; bracts in 1-3 rows, outer minute. Receptacle flat or slightly convex, paleate; paleae membranous, persistent, linear. Ray florets female; corolla yellowish, minutely 2-lobed or entire. Disc florets bisexual, often functionally male; corolla yellow or brownish, funnel-shaped, 5-lobed. Anthers obtuse at base, with apical appendage. Style branches of ray florets filiform, acute, those of disc florets well-developed with penicillate appendages. Cypselas of ray florets narrow, often with corky wings; disc cypselas compressed, winged or broadly spongy-cartilaginous. Pappus in ray florets 0, in disc cypselas of 2 minute teeth or a crown. x = 8 (9, 12-1 report each).

Annual or perennial herbs, usually cano-tomentose. Leaves alternate, sometimes radical, entire or sometimes toothed or pinnatisect. Capitula usually disciform or 'radiate' (not true ray florets, radiant), solitary or corymbose, rarely in elongated clusters. Involucre ovoid or globose; bracts generally with fimbriate-ciliate or lacerate, variously shaped appendages. Receptacle nearly flat, often fleshy, densely setose. Florets with outer row of florets neuter, inner bisexual; corolla purple, blue, yellow or white, tube slender below, dilated above, deeply 5-lobed, papillose or hairy; neuter florets sometimes larger. Anthers with bases sagittate, adjacent lobes connate and drawn out into long or short, entire or lacerate tail; filaments papillose or hairy. Style abruptly thickened below branches and there furnished with ring of hairs; branches erect, connate, shortly bifid, lanceolate or linear, obtuse. Cypselas obovoid-oblong or obconical, somewhat compressed, glabrous or sparsely pilose; attachment scar lateral and oblique. Pappus generally double, outer row of scabrid, barbellate or plumose bristles or subulate scales, inner row or entire pappus rarely 0. x = 9 (7, 8, 10, 11) (aneuploids, B-chromosomes, polyploidy).

Annual or perennial herbs with spiny-winged stems. Leaves rosulate to alternate, serrate, sinuate-dentate or pinnatifid, teeth spinose or occasionally rigidly ciliate. Capitula discoid, many-flowered, sometimes terminal, on long peduncles, sometimes subsessile or glomerate. Involucre ovoid, globose or cylindric; bracts in many rows, patent or recurved, spiny. Receptacle flat or convex, densely setose. Florets bisexual, fertile; corolla purple or white, tube narrowly cylindric below, dilated above, deeply lobed or sometimes +/- 2-lipped. Anthers with bases sagittate, adjacent auricles connate and produced into entire or lacerated tail; filaments glabrous or pilose. Style abruptly thickened above with ring of hairs below thickening; branches short, obtuse, minutely papillose, rarely filiform. Cypselas obovoid-oblong, smooth, glabrous, with apical rim. Pappus of scabrid to barbellate, decidous bristles, basally connate in ring. x = 8, 9, 11 (6, 7, 10, 13) (aneuploids, high polyploidy, B-chromosomes).

Much-branched shrublet, densely whitish-tomentose with axillary brachyblasts of crowded small leaves; older branches glabrous or subglabrous, often with scale-like withered leaf bases. Leaves closely to very closely set, involute ericoid, lanceolate to obovate, entire, acute, mucronate. Capitula discoid, mainly solitary, sometimes 2 or 3 together, 15-40-flowered. Involucre campanulate, 4-9 mm wide. Receptacle broadly conical, epaleate. Involucral bracts in 3 or 4 rows, outermost foliaceous or subfoliaceous, lanceolate to narrowly ovate and acute to acuminate, inner bracts with a scarious or mostly conspicuously petaloid lamina and undivided stereome, innermost with few hairs abaxially only. Disc florets bisexual, narrowly cylindrical, glabrous, 3.0-3.5 mm long, reddish above; lobes 5, spreading, deltoid. Anthers with a weakly narrowing, flat, narrowly ovate apical appendage, caudate, tails long, very branched. Style basally thickened, branches narrowly oblong, flat or semiterete, with stigmatic areas in two distinct, not confluent lines, apically truncate, penicillate; sweeping hairs short, obtuse. Cypselas narrowly oblong, irregular, dark brown, ribbed. Pappus barbellate, soon caducous, bristles free.