Hieracium cuatrecasasii

Interesting Facts

Description

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 Lactuceae

The Lactuceae are a tribe of closely related genera of the sunflower family that are easily recognized because the flowering heads are composed of wholly of ligulate florets that are usually 5-lobed. Another very distinguishing feature is the milky sap . Although not apparent without magnification, the pollen is distinctive in that the spines are more or less restricted to discrete ridges or flanges on the surface of the grain. In other members of the family the spines are distributed more or less evenly over the surface of the pollen grain . The pappus usually consists of scales or stiff hairs . -- Gerald D. Carr.

Genus Hieracium

Perennials , (5 ) 20 150+ cm; taprooted (rootstocks sometimes woody, branched; stolons produced in some taxa) . Stems usually 1, usually erect , usually branched distally, sometimes throughout, sometimes scapiform , glabrous or hairy (induments often complex , see discussion) . Leaves basal, basal and cauline, or cauline; petiolate or sessile; blades mostly elliptic , lanceolate, oblanceolate , oblong , or spatulate , margins entire, denticulate , or dentate [laciniate to pinnatifid ] (faces glabrous or hairy, induments often complex, see discussion) . Heads borne singly or in corymbiform , paniculiform , thyrsiform, umbelliform, or nearly racemiform arrays. Peduncles (terminal and axillary ) not inflated , often bracteate . Calyculi 0 or of 3 13( 16+), deltate to lanceolate or linear bractlets (in 1 2+ series; sometimes intergrading with phyllaries) . Involucres hemispheric or campanulate to cylindric , 3 9[ 12+] mm diam. Phyllaries 5 21( 40+) in 2+ series, lanceolate to linear, subequal to unequal (reflexed in fruit), margins usually little, if at all, scarious , apices obtuse to acute or acuminate. Receptacles flat, pitted , glabrous, epaleate. Florets 6 150+; corollas usually yellow, sometimes white or ochroleucous , sometimes tinged with cyan or red, rarely orange (then often drying scarlet or purplish) . Cypselae usually red-brown or black (tan in H. horridum), usually ± columnar or prismatic , sometimes ± urceolate (slightly bulbous proximally and narrower distally) or nearly fusiform , not distinctly beaked , ribs (or grooves ) usually 10, faces glabrous; pappi persistent (fragile), of 20 80+, distinct , white, sordid , stramineous , or rufous , ± equal or unequal, barbellulate bristles in 1 2+ series. x = 9.

Species 250 1000+: North America, Mexico, Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa.

Most plants referable to Hieracium are apomictic (reproducing from asexually produced seeds) . Apomictic reproduction often results in perpetuation of morphologic variants at populational and regional levels. Temptation to name such variants as species has proven irresistible to some botanists; upward of 9,000 species names have been published in Hieracium. Circumscriptions of "species" in Hieracium seem to be more artificial than in most genera of composites . Under these circumstances, I feel it would be irresponsible to recognize any infraspecific taxa here. For the most part, the "species" recognized here are those that have been recognized in local and regional floras of the past 50 or so years. Accepted names and/or changes in synomymies for some species reflect changes suggested by J. H. Beaman (1990), A. Cronquist (1980), and E. G. Voss (1972 1996, vol. 3) . I have maintained a traditional generic circumscription of Hieracium. Some other botanists exclude some species (including numbers 1 6 here) from Hieracium and treat them in Pilosella Hill , which differs from Hieracium in having stolons often produced, ribs of cypselae slightly projecting distally, and bristles of the pappi in one series. For Greenland, T. W. Böcher et al. (1968) reported 18 species of Hieracium: 16 said to be endemic to Greenland plus H. alpinum Linnaeus (known from Greenland and Eurasia ) and H. groenlandicum Arvet-Touvet (= H. vulgatum Fries; known from Greenland and continental North America) . Following H. J. Scoggan (1978 1979, part 4), I have placed 15 names of Greenland "endemics" as synonyms of other names. The type of the 16th "endemic," H. trigonophorum Oskarsson, is probably conspecific with that of H. alpinum. In my key and descriptions , "piloso-hirsute" refers to surfaces with scattered to crowded, tapered, whiplike, straight or curly, smooth to ± barbellate hairs mostly (0.5 ) 2 8( 15+) mm (sometimes called "setae") ; "stellate-pubescent" refers to surfaces with scattered to crowded, ± dendritically branched (often called, but seldom truly, "stellate") hairs mostly 0.05 0.2+ mm (such surfaces are sometimes described as "floccose") ; and "stipitate-glandular" refers to surfaces with scattered to crowded gland-tipped hairs mostly 0.2 0.8( 1.2+) mm. Surfaces of stems, leaves, peduncles, and phyllaries may be glabrous or may bear one, two, or all three of the types of hairs mentioned here; other induments are seldom encountered in hieraciums of the flora area. Given the complexity of the reproductive modes among the plants and the likelihood of misidentifications of vouchers , I have not included chromosome numbers for species. Sexual hieraciums are usually diploids (2n = 18) and the apomictic hieraciums are usually triploids (2n = 27) .

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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: Spermatopsida () - Brongniart, 1843
        Subclass: Asteridae () - Takhtajan, 1967
        Superorder: Campanulanae () - Takhtajan Ex Reveal, 1992
        Order: Asterales () - Lindley, 1833
        Family: Compositae () - Giseke, 1792, nom. cons., nom. alt.
        Subfamily: Cichorioideae ()
        Tribe: Lactuceae ()
        Subtribe: Hieraciinae ()
        Genus: Hieracium () - C. Linnaeus, 1753 - Hawkweed [said to be from Greek hierax, hawk]
        Specific epithet: cuatrecasasii - C. Pau
        Botanical name: - Hieracium cuatrecasasii C. Pau