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Psacalium sinuatum

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 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 Psacalium

Perennials , [10-]80-150[-300] cm (rhizomes usually fleshy ; plants hairy or tufted-hairy to unevenly glabrate ). Stems single or clustered, erect . Leaves basal and cauline (proximal largest, cauline progressively smaller distally, bractlike) ; alternate; petiolate (petioles well defined, attached to blades at bases [attached near centers, leaves peltate]) ; blades palmately or pinnately nerved (and, usually, lobed ), mostly ovate to elliptic [orbiculate, polygonal], ultimate margins entire or toothed , faces glabrous or sparsely [densely] hairy. Heads discoid , in corymbiform to paniculiform arrays. Calyculi of 1-3[-5] bractlets (shorter than [equaling or longer than] phyllaries). Involucres cylindric to weakly turbinate , 1.5-4[-10+] mm diam. Phyllaries persistent , mostly 5-8[-17] in 1-2 series, erect, distinct , ovate, obovate , or oblong , subequal , margins scarious (tips greenish or gray to whitish, not black). Receptacles flat, foveolate (sometimes hairy), epaleate. Ray florets 0. Disc florets 5-8[-80], bisexual , fertile ; corollas white or ochroleucous [yellow, purplish], tubes longer than the campanulate or ± lacking throats , lobes 5, ascending to spreading , lance-linear ; style branches: stigmatic areas continuous, apices rounded-truncate. Cypselae mostly ± ellipsoid , ± compressed , [10-]14-18-ribbed, glabrous or hairy; pappi [0] persistent (fragile), of 100-120, white or creamy, barbellulate bristles . x = 30.

Species ca. 42: sw United States, mostly Mexico and Central America.[1]

Taxonomy

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Notes

Name Status: Accepted Name .

Comment: Data Providers: CONABIO, IPNI, Tropicos. GCC LSID: urn :lsid:compositae.org:names:29F290E3-F9D9-4BEE-BA4A-2DFA5AE04FC6

Last scrutiny: 15-Aug-09

Similar Species

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Members of the genus Psacalium

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 1 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus:

P. decompositum (Desert Indianbush)

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 February 16, 2008:

Identifiers

Footnotes

  1. Theodore M. Barkley  "Psacalium". in Flora of North America Vol. 20 Page 543, 621. Oxford University Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
Last Revised: 2012-07-24