Gynura crepidioides (Redflower Ragleaf)

Interesting Facts

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Common Names

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Common Names in English:

Redflower Ragleaf

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 Senecioneae

The Senecioneae are a tribe of closely related genera that can be recognized most readily by the nature of the pappus and the involucral bracts or phyllaries. The phyllaries are basically in one well developed, often partially or wholly connate series of equal length that closely envelope the head . Frequently there are a few, very much smaller and mostly randomly distributed, often necrotic-tipped bracts near the base of the main series. The pappus is of fine, soft, often pure white capillary hairs . Heads may be either discoid or radiate . -- Gerald Carr.

Genus Gynura

Perennials [subshrubs , vines ], 20-100[300+] cm (± velutinous or villous [hispid , puberulent , glabrous ], hairs often purplish). Stems usually 1, weakly erect , spreading , or clambering (branched). Leaves [basal and/or] cauline; alternate; petiolate (petiole bases sometimes expanded, weakly clasping ) or sessile; blades pinnately nerved, ovate or elliptic to rhombic [oblanceolate or lanceolate to linear ], margins [entire or subentire ] toothed [coarsely pinnate], faces velutinous to villous [glabrous, hispid, puberulent]. Heads discoid , usually in corymbiform or paniculiform arrays, sometimes borne singly. Calyculi of 3-8+ bractlets . Involucres cylindric to campanulate [urceolate ], [3-]8-12[-15+] mm diam. Phyllaries persistent , [8] ± 13 in (1-) 2+ series, erect (reflexed in fruit), distinct (margins interlocking), linear, subequal , margins scarious . Receptacles flat, foveolate (knobby in fruit), epaleate. Ray florets 0. Disc florets [20-]30-80+, bisexual , fertile ; corollas yellow or orange to brick-red [purplish, ochroleucous , or white], tubes longer than funnelform throats , lobes 5, erect or reflexed, deltate to lanceolate; style branches stigmatic in 2 lines , apices with (orange or reddish) ± filiform appendages (hispidulous , 1-2 mm). Cypselae ± columnar or prismatic , 5-10-angled or -ribbed, glabrous [hairy ]; pappi persistent or fragile, of 60-80+, white, smooth or barbellulate bristles . x = 10.

Species ca. 40: introduced ; tropical Asia, Africa (including Madagascar), sw Pacific Islands, Australia.

Some species of Gynura are important in the horticultural trade; abundant literature is accessible through gardening compendia.[1]

Taxonomy

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Domain: Eukaryota () - Whittaker & Margulis,1978 - eukaryotes
- Kingdom: Plantae () - Haeckel, 1866 - Plants
  - Subkingdom: Viridaeplantae () - Cavalier-Smith, 1981
    - Phylum: Tracheophyta () - Sinnott, 1935 ex Cavalier-Smith, 1998 - Vascular Plants
      - Subphylum: Euphyllophytina ()
        Class: Magnoliopsida () - Brongniart, 1843 - Dicotyledons
        Subclass: Asteridae () - Takhtajan, 1967
        Superorder: Campanulanae () - Takhtajan Ex Reveal, 1992
        Order: Asterales () - Lindley, 1833
        Family: Compositae () - Giseke, 1792, nom. cons., nom. alt.
        Subfamily: Asteroideae ()
        Tribe: Senecioneae ()
        Subtribe: Senecioninae ()
        Genus: Gynura () - Cassini, 1825, nom. cons. - [Greek, presumably gyne, a female, and ura, tail, perhaps alluding to style branches]
        Specific epithet: crepidioides
        Botanical name: - Gynura crepidioides