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Cosmos concolor

Interesting Facts

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Description

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Family Compositae

The largest family of flowering plants , the Compositae (Asteraceae), comprising about 1,100 genera and more than 20,000 species and characterized by many small flowers arranged in a head looking like a single flower and subtended by an involucre of bracts. A head may consist of both ray flowers and disk flowers, as in the sunflower, of disk flowers only, as in the burdock, or of ray flowers only, as in the dandelion.

Tribe Heliantheae

The Heliantheae are a tribe of closely related genera of the sunflower family that can be readily recognized due to the association of a receptacular bract or chaff scale with each disk floret in the head . The heads usually include bisexual , actinomorphic disk florets with tubular corollas that have 4 or 5 distal lobes and also peripheral zygomorphic female or sometimes sterile florets with strap-shaped corollas that have 3 or fewer distal teeth. However, the ray flowers are sometimes absent and the heads are then discoid , containing only bisexual florets with tubular corollas. The pappus is absent or more commonly ranges from scales to stiff bristles . -- Gerald Carr.

Genus Cosmos

Annuals [perennials or subshrubs ], 30-250 cm. Stems usually 1, erect or ascending , branched distally or ± throughout. Leaves mostly cauline; opposite; petiolate or sessile; blades usually 1-3-pinnately lobed [undivided], ultimate margins usually entire, faces usually glabrous , sometimes glabrate , hispid , puberulent , or scabridulous . Heads radiate , borne singly or in corymbiform arrays. Calyculi of [5-]8 basally connate , ± linear to subulate , herbaceous (striate ) bractlets . Involucres hemispheric or subhemispheric [cylindric ], 3-15 mm diam. Phylla­ries persistent , [5-]8 in ± 2 series, distinct , lanceolate, lance-oblong, lance-ovate, or oblong , ± equal, membranous or herbaceous, margins ± scarious . Receptacles flat, paleate; paleae falling, linear, flat or slightly concave-convex, scarious (entire). Ray florets [0, 5] 8 (more in "double" cultivars), neuter ; corollas white to pink or purple, or yellow to red-orange. Disc florets 10-20[-80+], bisexual , fertile ; corollas yellow [orange] (at least distally), tubes shorter than funnelform throats , lobes 5, ± deltate (staminal filaments hairy near anthers ; style branches linear, flattened, thicker distally, hirtellous, appendages relatively slender). Cypselae (dark brown or black) relatively slender, quadrangular-cylindric or -fusiform [outer somewhat obcompressed ], sometimes slightly arcuate , attenuate-beaked, not winged [winged], faces glabrous or hispid to scabridulous or ± setose , sometimes papillate , usually with 1 groove ; pappi persistent [falling], of 2-4[-8] retrorsely [antrorsely] barbed awns , sometimes 0. x = 12.

Species ca. 26: tropical and subtropical America, especially Mexico, widely introduced elsewhere.[1]

Taxonomy

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Notes

Name Status: Accepted Name .

Comment: Data Providers: CONABIO, Govaerts World Compositae Checklist A-G, IPNI, Tropicos. GCC LSID: urn :lsid:compositae.org:names:05C108AC-CC55-4D27-81E2-D2AB2D325D92

Last scrutiny: 12-Aug-09

Similar Species

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Members of the genus Cosmos

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 48 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus:

C. atrosanguineus (Chocolate Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Candy Stripe' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Dancing Petticoats' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Daydream' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Dazzler' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Double Click' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Dwarf Sensation Mix' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Early Sensation' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Early Sensation Albatross' (Common Cosmos) · C. Bipinnatus 'Gazebo White' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Gloria' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Picotee' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Pied Piper' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Pinkie' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Psyche Mixed' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Psycho' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Purity' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Radiance' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Seashells' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Sensation Mix' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Sonata Carmine' (Carmine Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Sonata Pink' (Pink Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Sonata Pink Blush' (Sonata Pink Blush Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Sonata Series Mixed' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Sonata White' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Versailles Mix' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Versailles Rose' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Versailles Tetra' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Versailles Tetra Pink' (Common Cosmos) · C. bipinnatus 'Yellow Garden' (Common Cosmos) · C. caudatus (Wild Cosmos) · C. parviflorus (Dwarf Wild Cosmos) · C. peucedanifolius (Perennial Cosmos) · C. sulphureus (Klondike Cosmos) · C. sulphureus 'Ladybird Scarlet' (Klondike Cosmos) · C. sulphureus 'Bright Lights' (Klondike Cosmos) · C. sulphureus 'Cosmic Mix' (Common Cosmos) · C. sulphureus 'Cosmic Orange' (Common Cosmos) · C. sulphureus 'Cosmic Red' (Common Cosmos) · C. sulphureus 'Cosmic Yellow' (Common Cosmos) · C. sulphureus 'Ladybird Dwarf' (Cosmos) · C. sulphureus 'Ladybird Dwarf Lemon' (Cosmos) · C. sulphureus 'Lemon Twist' (Cosmos) · C. sulphureus 'Polidor' (Klondike Cosmos) · C. sulphureus 'Red Crest' (Klondike Cosmos) · C. sulphureus 'Solar Flare' (Klondike Cosmos) · C. sulphureus 'Sunny Red' (Klondike Cosmos)

More Info

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Further Reading

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Notes

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Contributors

Data Sources

Accessed through GBIF Data Portal January 29, 2008:

Identifiers

Footnotes

  1. Robert W. Kiger "Cosmos". in Flora of North America Vol. 21 Page 184, 203. Oxford University Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
Last Revised: 7/24/2012