Description:

• Annual herbs
• Leaves alternate, petiolate, oblong-obovate to linear-oblong in outline, dentate or lyrate-pinnatifid, lobes serrate, hairy on both sides
• Capitula disciform, small, subglobose, in terminal panicles, pedunculate; peduncles bracteate
• Involucre somewhat flattened or cup-shaped; bracts in ± 2 rows, equal, glabrous, oblong, with fimbriated, membranous margins
• Receptacle hemispherical, epaleate
• Marginal florets female, fertile, many, corolla whitish or yellow (rarely reddish), tubular, 2- or 3-denticulate, with few glands
• Disc florets bisexual, fertile, fewer than marginal flowers, corolla yellowish green, tubular below, campanulate above, laxly glandular, with 4 triangular lobes
• Anthers oblong, ecalcarate and ecaudate, with minute, triangular apical appendage
• Style as long as corolla, with 2 short branches; appendages lanceolate
• Cypselas obovate, slightly compressed, basically and apically with few glands, otherwise glabrous and shiny
• Pappus usually 0 in ray florets, 0 or 1 or 2 caducous bristles in disc florets
• x = 9 (6, 10 - 1 report each)

Nomenclature:

• Dichrocephala L'Hér. ex DC.
  • Candolle: 517 (1833)
  • Hilliard: 58 (1977)
  • Fayed: 491 (1979)
  • Bremer: 400 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 4, tropical and subtropical Africa, Madagascar and Asia
• Southern Africa: Species 1: Dichrocephala integrifolia (L.f.) Kuntze subsp. integrifolia, Northern Province, North-West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape