Description :

• Annual or perennial herbs with milky latex
• Leaves radical or alternate, entire, coarsely toothed or pinnatifid
• Capitula ligulate, corymbose or rarely racemose
• Involucre narrowly campanulate or subcylindric; bracts in 2 unequal rows, outer few and short, inner lanceolate
• Receptacle epaleate
• Florets strap-shaped; corolla yellow
• Anthers sagittate at base, acute or shortly setaceous-acuminate
• Style branches long, slender, sweeping hairs present
• Cypselas narrowly oblong-terete to fusiform, apically slightly attenuate, somewhat compressed, many-ribbed, usually with 5 main ribs, glabrous
• Pappus of scabrid-barbellate bristles
• x = 5, 8 (4, 6, 9) (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• *Youngia Cass.
  • Cassini: 88 (1831)
  • Hilliard: 635 (1977)
  • Bremer: 183 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 30, Asia
• Southern Africa : * Youngia japonica (L.) DC., introduced, has become a weed on the coast and in the midlands of KwaZulu-Natal