Annual or perennial herbs, diffuse or erect, ± strigose pubescent or hirsute
Leaves opposite, sessile or shortly petiolate, lanceolate-linear, entire or remotely toothed
Capitula radiate, small, few-flowered, pedunculate, solitary or in pairs in upper leaf axils
Involucre campanulate or hemispherical
Receptacle flat or convex; paleae longer than florets, boat-shaped, ribbed, sometimes 0 from centre of disc
Ray florets female or sterile; corolla white; tube somewhat compressed, much shorter than lamina, glabrous; lamina oblong-elliptic, truncate, entire or 2- or 3-toothed, ciliate above, glandular-pilose on back of base
Anthers linear, obtuse at base, with ovate to round apical appendage
Style oblong, apex deltoid, papillose outside
Cypselas oblong, ± compressed
Pappus a ring of fine minute hairs or 0
x = 11 (9, 10, 12) (aneuploids)
Nomenclature:
*Eclipta L.
Linnaeus: 157 (1771)
Oliver & Hiern: 373 (1877)
Harvey: 131 (1865)
Phillips: 814 (1951)
Wild: 9 (1967)
Hilliard: 303 (1977)
Karis & Ryding: 583 (1994)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species 4, pantropical
Southern Africa: Species 1: *Eclipta prostrata (L.) L., a cosmopolitan weed from Asia, occurring in Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape
References:
HARVEY, W.H. 1865. Compositae. Flora capensis 3
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
LINNAEUS, C. VON. 1771. Mantissa plantarum 2. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
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. 1967. The Compositae of the Flora zambesiaca area, 1. Kirkia 6
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Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
The integrated information comes from our much-loved Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA) also known as Plants of Southern Africa (POSA), Zoological Database of Southern Africa (ZODATSA), Biodiversity Geographic Information System (BGIS), SANBI's institutional repository (Opus) and others.
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