ASTERACEAE  

Annual or perennial herbs, sometimes shrubby. Leaves opposite, sessile or shortly petiolate, simple, bases connate and sheathing stem, margins entire, roughly hairy. Capitula radiate, large, solitary, terminal on long, hollow peduncle swollen below capitulum. Involucre narrowly or broadly campanulate or subcylindric; bracts in 3 to many rows, oblong or obovate, imbricate, apices rounded with darker or discoloured summit band at or near apex. Receptacle conical to concave, with paleae conduplicate, embracing disc florets. Ray florets female, fertile; corolla strap-shaped, discolorous, outer surface greyish white, inner surface reddish or brownish red, drying purplish, persistent. Cypselas 3-angled or dorsiventrally compressed. Pappus 0. Disc florets bisexual, fertile; corolla brownish yellow, tubular, 5-toothed. Anthers with small apical appendage, base obtuse. Style branches long, linear, obtuse or subtruncate. Cypselas obovate, 3-angled or compressed. Pappus of 1 or 2 awns. x = 10, 11, 12 (7, 9, 13) (aneuploids, polyploidy, B-chromosomes).

Coarse, annual herbs, monoecious. Leaves alternate, petiolate, simple, deltoid or narrowly rhomboidal, margin variously toothed or lobed. Capitula and florets unisexual. Male capitula globose, many-flowered; involucre short, bracts few, narrow, in 1 or 2 rows; receptacle hemispherical, paleate; corolla tubular, 5-toothed; anthers with small apical appendage, base obtuse; filaments connate; ovary abortive; style undivided. Female capitula ovoid, 2-flowered; involucre completely enveloping 2 female flowers, 2-locular within, apex 1- or 2-beaked; corolla 0; style branches long, linear, acute, tips exserted on inner face of each terminal beak near its base; cypselas obovoid or oblong, solitary in each involucral chamber; involucre enlarging, hardening, with prominent hooked spines, shed as 2-celled unit. Pappus 0. x = 9 (5, 17) (high polyploidy-1 report).

Annual herbs, with ribbed and pilose branches. Leaves alternate, ovate, deeply toothed, pubescent on upper surface, densely albo-tomentose beneath. Capitula radiate; many-flowered, peduncled, terminal and axillary, corymbose. Involucre campanulate; bracts in 2 rows, lanceolate, strigose on back, herbaceous. Receptacle flat, paleate; paleae as long as ovary, lanceolate in profile, boat-shaped, acuminate, keeled, ciliate on keel, pilose above. Ray florets sterile or rarely neuter; corolla yellow; tube very much shorter than lamina, pilose; lamina broadly linear, obtuse. Disc florets bisexual, fertile; corolla yellow; tube pilose below, widened above; lobes 5, ovate, glandular on face. Anthers linear, faintly eared at base, with lanceolate apical appendage. Style terete, globose at base; branches linear, contracted at apex into linear, glandular appendage. Cypselas oblong, obovate or triquetrous, laterally compressed. Pappus of 2 awns. x = 17 (7, 8, 9, 10) (aneuploids, polyploidy, B-chromosomes).

Annual or perennial herbs or subshrubs. Leaves alternate, entire or serrate to pinnatisect. Capitula radiate, rarely discoid, many-flowered, pedunculate, solitary or laxly corymbose. Involucre campanulate; bracts in 5-7 rows, free; outer usually with brown margin; inner or all with membranous margin, glabrous. Receptacle flat or convex, honeycombed, paleate; paleae as long as and enveloping disc florets, sometimes narrow with apical limb. Rayflorets neuter, rarely female, fertile or sterile; corolla yellow, orange, white or rarely reddish, dorsally sometimes coppery; tube with +/- linear-oblong, rounded or 2- or 3-toothed lamina 2.5-10 x longer than tube. Discflorets bisexual, fertile, central florets female and sterile; corolla yellow, purplish or coppery; tube cylindric or funnel-shaped, with 5 lanceolate, sometimes appendaged lobes, sometimes with marginal glands. Anthers ecalcarate and ecaudate; with ovate, apical appendage; endothecial tissue polarised. Style terete, with linear, penicillate branches, papillose at apex. Cypselas 5-ribbed, glabrous or with basal tuft of long hairs, glandular, erect or curved. Pappus in 1 row, of 5-10 obovate or rounded, hyaline, sometimes fimbriate scales, which envelop one another; or in 2 rows, of 5 outer scales and 5 inner bristles; occasionally 0. x = 8 (5, 7).

Delicate annual or short-lived perennial herbs well-branched from base; stems filiform, prostrate, diffuse or weakly erect, thinly white-woolly, distantly leafy. Leaves alternate, small, on filiform petioles; blade elliptic or ovate; margins flat, entire, both surfaces cobwebby or thinly woolly (hair type B), upper sometimes glabrescent. Capitula discoid or disciform, small, on filiform peduncles racemosely or subcorymbosely arranged, or rarely nearly sessile and crowded. Involucralbracts in 3(-5) rows, subequal, slightly exceeding flowers; stereome undivided or with 2 or 3 thin linear patches in upper part, lower part canaliculate, embracing adjacent flower; lamina delicate, pellucid, sometimes purplish above stereome, tip subopaque or opaque white, obtuse to subacute, either radiating or whole involucre rotating at maturity. Receptacle shallowly tubercled, flat, epaleate. Flowers 8-30, yellow, sometimes tipped pink; female flowers (0)2-23, fewer than, or +/- equalling, or 2 or 3(-7) x as many as bisexual florets, narrowly tubular or filiform; bisexual flowers narrowly infundibuliform or tubular below, narrowly campanulate above, with 5 deltoid lobes, glandular hairs with biseriate stalk and small globular 2-celled head on backs of all lobes. Anthers ecalcarate, caudate, tails shorter than, +/- equalling, or slightly exceeding filament collar, with small obtuse apical appendage; endothecial tissue polarised. Style branches truncate and penicillate, with obtuse sweeping hairs apically. Cypselas oblong, wall with slightly raised cells, moderately imbricate or not, oblong duplex hairs with swelling cushion frequently present, apparently not always emitting mucilage (neither imbricate cells nor duplex hairs a specific character). Pappus bristles barbellate or subplumose above, these cilia +/- clavate and with delicate wall thickenings, shaft markedly barbellate, bases cohering by patent cilia.