Description :

• Herbs, shrubs or trees, sometimes xerophytic and spiny
• Leaves alternate or rosulate, entire to variously dentate-lobed or sometimes pinnatisect
• Capitula discoid, disciform or radiate, solitary or variously arranged
• Involucral bracts generally chartaceous and in several rows, more rarely herbaceous and in few rows
• Receptacle epaleate
• Marginal florets (if present) bilabiate with expanded lamina, only occasionally without adaxial lobes, bisexual, female or neuter; few species with disciform capitula with inconspicuous, female marginal florets
• Disc florets regular and deeply 5-lobed or frequently bilabiate, bisexual or functionally male or female
• Anthers calcarate and caudate; tails often branched (pilose); apical appendage often rather long and coloured, flat; endothecial tissue polarised
• Style variable; style branches frequently rather short, glabrous to papillose or pilose dorsally and apically; hairs acute or obtuse-rounded; stigmatic areas cover inside of style branches
• Cypselas oblong-obovoid, sometimes rather slender, often ribbed
• Pappus of many scabrid to barbellate, sometimes plumose bristles, rarely of scales, or with additional scales

Nomenclature:

• Mutisieae
  • Cassini: 199 (1819)
  • Pope: 4 (1992)
  • Bremer: 93 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Genera 74, pantropical, greatest concentration in South America; also in Central America, West Indies, southern North America, tropical and southern Africa, Madagascar, tropical and East Asia, Hawaiian Islands, Australia
• Southern Africa : Genera 5, species 40

References:

• BREMER, K. 1994. Asteraceae , cladistics & classification . Timber Press, Portland, Oregon
• CASSINI, A.H.G. DE. 1819. In Journal de physique, de chimie, d'histoire naturelle et des artes 88
• DYER, R.A. 1975. The genera of southern African flowering plants , Vol. 1. Botanical Research Institute, Pretoria
• POPE, G.V. 1992. 97. Compositae . Flora zambesiaca 6,1

Resources:

• Key to Asteraceae tribes
• Key to Mutisieae genera

• Mutisieae genera: