Annual herbs or subshrubs with annual stems, erect or prostrate, often tomentose
Leaves alternate, occasionally subrosulate, sessile, usually discolorous, entire or serrulate or revolute
Capitula discoid, all florets bisexual; or disciform, outer florets neuter
Involucre subglobose or subcampanulate; bracts in many rows, pungent, glabrous
Receptacle flat, epaleate
Florets with corolla white or purple; tube of bisexual floret dilated above, deeply 5-lobed; neuter florets narrowly tubular, sub-bilabiate or subradiate
Anthers linear; bases sagittate produced into long, retrorse-ciliate tails; apical appendage lanceolate
Style terete, slightly swollen at base, bifid at apex, tips obtuse with minute sweeping hairs
Cypselas obovoid to obconical, ribbed, pilose
Pappus of various bristles and/or scales in several rows; bristles scabrid to barbellate to plumose, apically pilose
x = 11
Nomenclature:
Dicoma Cass.
Cassini: 12 (1817)
Oliver & Hiern: 442 (1877)
Phillips: 850 (1951)
Wild: 178 (1972)
Hilliard: 582 (1977)
Lawalrée & Mvukiyumwami: 151 (1982)
Pope: 29 (1992)
Bremer: 99 (1994)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species 35, tropical and southern Africa, Madagascar, Sokotra, India
CASSINI, A.H.G. DE. 1817. Aperçu des genres ou sous-genres nouveaux formés par M. Henri Cassini dans la famille des Synanthérées. Bulletin des sciences de la Société Philomatique de Paris 4,1
HILLIARD, O.M. 1977. Compositae in Natal. University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg
LAWALRÉE, A. & MVUKIYUMWAMI, J. 1982. Le genre Dicoma Cassini (Asteraceae) en Afrique centrale. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique National de Belgique 52
OLIVER, D & HIERN, W.P. 1877. Compositae. Flora of tropical Africa 3
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. 1972. The Compositae of the Flora zambesiaca area, 3. Mutisieae. Kirkia 8
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