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Lapsana takasei

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 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 Lapsana

Annuals [biennials], 15-150 cm; fibrous-rooted. Stems 1, erect , simple or branched, glabrate to sparsely or densely pilose , hairs often stipitate-glandular . Leaves basal and cauline (not in rosettes) ; narrowly winged-petiolate; blades ovate to suborbiculate (thin), margins entire, dentate , or lyrate-pinnatifid proximally (terminal lobes larger than laterals , faces glabrate to sparsely hirsute ; distal sessile, lanceolate, reduced). Heads in open, corymbiform to thyrsiform arrays. Peduncles (slender) slightly inflated distally, ebracteate . Calyculi of 4-5 subulate or scalelike, glabrous bractlets . Involucres cylindric to campanulate , 2-5 mm diam. Phyllaries 8-10 in 1 series, linear-oblong, subequal , (strongly keeled ) margins green, not scarious , apices acute, faces glabrous. Receptacles flat, smooth , glabrous, epaleate. Florets 8-15; corollas yellow. Cypselae dimorphic (outer much longer than inner), tan to golden brown, subcylindric , curved , terete to slightly compressed , not beaked , ± 20-ribbed, glabrous; pappi 0. . = 7.

Species 1: introduced ; Europe, Asia.

Lapsana formerly included about 9 species, some from eastern Asia. Based on cladistic analysis of morphologic characters, the eastern Asian species have been removed to Lapasanastrum, a strongly supported monophyletic group characterized by spreading phyllaries and distinctive fruit anatomy (J. H. Pak and K . Bremer 1995).[1]

Taxonomy

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Synonyms

Lactuca takasei Sasaki • Lapsanastrum Takasei

Similar Species

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Members of the genus Lapsana

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 2 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus:

L. communis (Common Nipplewort) · L. communis communis (Common Nipplewort)

More Info

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Further Reading

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Notes

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Contributors

Identifiers

Footnotes

  1. David J. Bogler "Lapsana". in Flora of North America Vol. 19, 20 and 21 Page 218, 255, 257. Oxford University Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
Last Revised: 7/23/2012