Tussilago rupestris

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 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 Tussilago

Perennials , 5-30(-50) cm (rhizomes fibrous-rooted, creeping ; plants forming extensive colonies). Stems usually 1, erect (scapiform , not branched). Leaves basal and cauline (basal usually developing after flowers) ; alternate; petiolate (petiole lengths 1-2 times blades ) or sessile; blades (basal) palmately nerved, orbiculate to polygonal or lobed (cauline leaves lance-ovate to linear , bractlike or scale-like), margins denticulate , abaxial faces gray-tomentose, adaxial tomentulose , glabrescent . Heads (erect at flowering, nodding in fruit) radiate , borne singly. Calyculi 0 (or indistinct, bractlets intergrading with bractlike cauline leaves). Involucres cylindric to subturbinate, 10-15 mm diam. (larger in fruit). Phyllaries persistent , usually ± 21 in (1-) 2 series, erect, distinct , lance-linear to linear, subequal , margins scarious (apices greenish or yellow-green). Receptacles convex , foveolate (socket margins ± membranous), epaleate. Ray florets 100-200(-300+), pistillate , fertile ; corollas yellow (drying pinkish). Disc florets (20-) 30-40, functionally staminate ; corollas yellowish, tubes longer than campanulate throats , lobes 5, erect, linear; styles not divided . Cypselae narrowly cylindric or ± prismatic , 5(-10) -ribbed, glabrous ; pappi readily falling or fragile, of 60-100+, white, barbellulate or smooth bristles . x = 30.

Species 1: introduced ; temperate Eurasia , n Africa.[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: Tussilagininae ()
        Genus: Tussilago () - C. Linnaeus, 1753 - Coltsfoot [Said to be based on Latin tussis, cough, for which the plant has a medicinal reputation]
        Specific epithet: rupestris - Wall.
        Botanical name: - Tussilago rupestris Wall.