Leaves
opposite, sessile or petiolate, simple, margins dentate or pinnatisect
Capitula
radiate; solitary, sessile or pedunculate, in leaf axils or forks of branches
Involucre
in 2 rows; outer bracts herbaceous, inner enlarging in fruit, indurate, spiny, enveloping cypselas of ray florets
Receptacle
conical, paleate
Ray florets
5-8, female fertile; corolla yellow, shortly strap-shaped
Style
branches linear, obtuse
Cypselas
oblong, smooth, tightly enveloped in one of the involucral bracts
Pappus
0
Disc florets
bisexual, functionally male; corolla yellow, usually campanulate with narrow tube, 5-toothed
Anthers
with obtuse bases, apical appendage present
Style
undivided, somewhat clavate
Ovary
of disc florets abortive
x = 10, 11
Nomenclature:
*Acanthospermum
Schrank
Schrank: t. 53 (1820)
Candolle: 521 (1836)
Phillips: 812 (1951)
Wild: 5 (1967)
Hilliard: 292 (1977)
Karis & Ryding: 609 (1994)
Distribution & Notes:
Global
: Species 6, Central and South America
Southern Africa
: Species 3, naturalised, widespread, absent from Northern and Western Cape
References:
SCHRANK, F. VON P. VON. 1820.
Plantae rariores horti academici monacensis
. München
CANDOLLE, A.P. DE. 1836.
Compositae
.
Prodromus
5. Treuttel & Würtz, Paris
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
HILLIARD, O.M. 1977.
Compositae
in Natal
. University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg
KARIS, P.O. & RYDING, O. 1994. Tribes
Helenieae
and
Heliantheae
. In K. Bremer,
Asteraceae
, cladistics and classification
. Timber Press, Portland, Oregon
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