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

Asteraceae - Heliantheae - *Verbesina L.

Description :

  • 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)

Nomenclature:

  • *Verbesina L.
    • Linnaeus: 901(1753)
    • Phillips: 817 (1951)
    • Wild: 61 (1967)
    • Karis & Ryding: 599 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 300, North, Central and South America
  • Southern Africa : Species 2, occur in various parts as introduced weeds: * Verbesina encelioides (Cav.) Benth. & Hook. var. encelioides , Namibia, Botswana, North-West, Northern Province, Free State, Northern Cape, and * V. encelioides (Cav.) Benth. & Hook. var. exauriculata C.B.Rob. & Greenm., Eastern Cape

References:

  • KARIS, P.O. & RYDING, O. 1994. Tribes Helenieae and Heliantheae . In K. Bremer, Asteraceae , cladistics and classification . Timber Press, Portland, Oregon
  • LINNAEUS, C. VON. 1753. Species plantarum . Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants, edn 2. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
  • WILD, H. 1967. The Compositae of the Flora zambesiaca area, 1. Kirkia 6