e-Key v3 - *Silybum
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Asteraceae - Cardueae - *Silybum Adans.

Description :

  • Annual or biennial herbs
  • Leaves rosulate to alternate, white-veined to variegated above, sinuate-lobate or pinnatifid, undulate, margins spiny
  • Capitula discoid, solitary, terminal, erect or drooping
  • Involucre broadly subglobose; bracts marginally spiny and spine-tipped
  • Receptacle flat, densely setose
  • Florets bisexual, fertile; corolla purple; tube slender below, abruptly expanded above, deeply 5-lobed
  • Anthers with very short tails; filaments connate into papillose tube
  • Style scarcely thickened below branches, there furnished with ring of short hairs; branches linear-lanceolate, flattened, connate, minutely papillose outside
  • Cypselas obovoid, somewhat compressed, glabrous, attachment scar ± horizontal, central
  • Pappus double: outer row of scabrid, deciduous bristles, basally connate in a ring, inner row of short hairs
  • x = 17 (7)

Nomenclature:

  • *Silybum Adans.
    • Adanson: 116 (1763)
    • Henderson & Anderson: 396 (1966)
    • Hilliard: 579 (1977)
    • Bremer: 148 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species 2, Mediterranean region
  • Southern Africa : * Silybum marianum (L.) Gaertn. is an introduced weed occurring in Western and Eastern Cape

References:

  • ADANSON, M. 1763. Familles des Plantes 2. Vincent, Paris
  • BREMER, K. 1994. Asteraceae , cladistics & classification . Timber Press, Portland, Oregon
  • HENDERSON, M. & ANDERSON, J.G. 1966. Common weeds in South Africa. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 37
  • HILLIARD, O.M. 1977. Compositae in Natal . University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg