Tagetes

Annual herbs, usually erect, glabrous, strongly aromatic. Stems simple or diffusely branched. Leaves opposite or alternate, sessile, base expanded with several, narrow, linear segments, pinnate or rarely simple, lobes lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, margins sharply serrate. Capitula usually radiate, few-flowered, solitary on long peduncles or corymbosely arranged. Involucre cylindric; bracts usually in 1 row, outer ones minute, inner ones connate. Receptacle flat, epaleate. Ray florets female, fertile; corolla pale yellow to lemon-yellow, strap-shaped. Style branches linear-lanceolate. Disc florets bisexual, fertile; corolla yellow, tubular, expanded above, 5-fid. Anthers with bases obtuse; apical appendage lanceolate. Style branches narrowly oblong, truncate and penicillate or with deltoid appendage, papillose on outer faces. Cypselas linear, narrowed to base, compressed or angled. Pappus of few scales, sometimes awned. x = 6 (10, 11) (high polyploidy).