Flora of North America species comparison

± erect to prostrate.

mostly basal, or basal and cauline, or mostly cauline; opposite and/or alternate; usually sessile, rarely petiolate;

blades usually spatulate to oblanceolate or linear to linear-elliptic, sometimes pinnately lobed, ultimate margins entire or toothed, faces usually hairy and glandular (glands sometimes elaborate, apices sometimes gland- or spine-tipped).

mostly cauline (at flowering);

proximal opposite (often in winter–spring rosettes), most alternate; ± sessile;

blades oblanceolate to linear or lance-linear, proximal usually 1–2-pinnatifid, ultimate margins toothed or entire (sometimes bristly-ciliate), (apices of distal leaves usually spine-tipped) faces glabrous, scabroso-hirtellous, ± hirsute, or villous, often glandular as well.

campanulate, cylindric, ellipsoid, globose, fusiform, hemispheric, obconic, or urceolate.

± obconic or urceolate, 3–8+ mm diam. (subtended by calyculi of 5–12+ usually spine-tipped bractlets).

flat or convex to conic, ± paleate (paleae either in 1 series interior to ray florets, then usually connate and persistent, or 1 palea subtending each disc floret, then usually distinct and soon falling, or, in discoid heads, paleae functioning as phyllaries in 1 series and together constituting an “involucre”).

flat to convex, setulose, paleate (paleae persistent, subtending all or most disc florets, distinct, phyllary-like, more scarious).

0, or 1–75+, pistillate, fertile;

corollas usually yellow or whitish, sometimes proximally yellow and distally whitish, often marked with red or purple or turning red on drying, rarely orange or red-orange (apices usually ± deeply divided, lobes usually 3, sometimes 2).

5–75+, pistillate, fertile;

corollas yellow.

1–200+, bisexual and fertile, or functionally staminate;

corollas usually yellow, sometimes brown, orange, reddish, or whitish, tubes much shorter than to about equaling cylindric to funnelform throats, lobes 5, deltate;

anther thecae usually dark (reddish to purple, often described as “black”), sometimes pale (yellow to brown);

stigmatic papillae in 2 lines.

6–200+, usually functionally staminate, rarely bisexual and fertile;

corollas yellow, tubes shorter than funnelform throats, lobes 5, deltate (anthers reddish to dark purple or yellow to brownish; styles glabrous proximal to branches).

persistent or falling, 1–75+ in 1(–2) series or 0 (the “involucre” then interpreted as constituted of 1 series of receptacular paleae; phyllaries distinct or weakly connate, narrowly ovate to lanceolate or linear, equal or subequal, herbaceous, usually conduplicate, often each partly or wholly investing a subtended floret, apices often attenuate, faces usually glandular).

falling or persistent, 5–75+ in 1 series (lanceolate to lance-attenuate or oblanceolate, herbaceous, each usually 1/2 enveloping subtended ray floret proximally, abaxially scabroso-hirtellous, hirsute, or villous and/or glandular, apices often spine-tipped).

usually 0, sometimes 2–12+ bractlets (Centromadia, some members of Hemizonia and Lagophylla).

usually radiate, rarely discoid, usually in corymbiform, glomerulate, paniculiform, spiciform, or ± umbelliform arrays, sometimes borne singly.

radiate, borne in glomerules or ± spiciform-paniculiform or ± umbelliform arrays.

obcompressed, compressed, or terete, often obpyramidal, clavate, or fusiform, glabrous or hairy (ray and disc often different);

pappi 0, or persistent or falling, of awns, bristles, or scales (sometimes in combination) in 1–2 series (the elements often ciliate or plumose).

usually 0;

pappi (of disc florets) 0 or of 3–12 linear, oblanceolate, or subulate scales.

± compressed (abaxially gibbous, basal attachments basal or oblique, apices beaked or elevated adaxially, faces glabrous);

pappi 0.

bracts: pit-glands and tack-glands 0 (apices usually spine-tipped, sometimes apiculate).

= 13.