Flora of North America species comparison

1, erect [sprawling], branched throughout.

usually cauline (sometimes mostly basal); usually mostly opposite (distal sometimes alternate), rarely whorled;

petiolate or sessile;

blades (often pinnately or palmately lobed, sometimes compound), or lobes or leaflets, mostly deltate, elliptic, filiform, lanceolate, linear, oblanceolate, or ovate, ultimate margins entire or toothed, faces usually glabrous or glabrate, sometimes hairy (rarely, if ever, gland-dotted).

cauline; opposite; obscurely petiolate;

blades 1–2-pinnately or -pedately lobed (ultimate lobes narrowly lanceolate to filiform [lanceolate to ovate]), ultimate margins entire, faces usually glabrous, rarely hairy [pilose].

mostly campanulate, cylindric, turbinate, or hemispheric or broader.

± campanulate to turbinate, 3–5+ mm diam.

mostly flat to convex, paleate (paleae often stramineous to white with red-brown to purplish striae, orbiculate to oblong or linear, ± flat to slightly cupped).

flat to convex, paleate;

paleae falling, (stramineous with red-brown striae) lance-linear to lanceolate, membranous to scarious [adnate to cypselae].

0 or 1–21+ (more in cultivars), pistillate and fertile, or neuter, or styliferous and sterile;

corollas usually yellow to orange (sometimes bicolored: yellow to orange with brown, red-brown, or purple), sometimes cyanic or white.

0, or [1–]5–8, pistillate, fertile [styliferous and sterile or neuter];

corollas [orange] yellow to pale yellow or white [purplish].

3–150+, usually bisexual, fertile (functionally staminate in Dicranocarpus);

corollas usually yellow to orange, sometimes brown, red-brown, or purple, tubes usually shorter than, sometimes equaling funnelform throats (longer than throats in some Thelesperma spp.), lobes (3–)5, ± deltate to lance-ovate; (staminal filaments hairy in Cosmos) anther thecae pale or dark;

stigmatic papillae in 2 lines.

[5–]12–25[–30+], bisexual, fertile;

corollas yellow with red-brown nerves, tubes shorter than narrowly funnelform throats, lobes 5, ± deltate.

persistent, 3–34+ in ± 2 series (usually distinct, notably connate in Thelesperma), usually ± membranous, margins usually ± scarious.

persistent, 5–8[–13+] in ± 2 series, distinct, (green to stramineous with red-brown to purplish nerves) ovate to oblong, ± equal, membranous, margins scarious.

usually of 3–8(–21+) bractlets or bracts (usually ± herbaceous, usually shorter than phyllaries and/or reflexed, sometimes ± foliaceous and surpassing phyllaries).

of (0–)1–3+ linear to subulate, herbaceous bractlets.

radiate or discoid, borne singly or in ± corymbiform, cymiform, or paniculiform arrays.

usually radiate, sometimes discoid, in open, corymbiform to paniculiform arrays [borne singly].

usually either obcompressed to obflattened, usually cuneate, linear, oblong, orbiculate, or ovate (bodies unequally 3–4-angled, margins often winged), or (all or inner) ± equally 4-angled and linear-fusiform, sometimes ± beaked, faces glabrous or hairy (often striate, tuberculate, or papillate);

pappi 0, or persistent, of (1–)2–4(–8), usually ± barbellate awns or scales, rarely coroniform or of 1–2, smooth to ciliate or barbed awns or scales.

(blackish or red-brown to stramineous) obcompressed, ± oblanceolate, faces smooth or ± granular-papillate, margins ± winged, wings ± corky, ± pectinate [entire];

pappi 0, or persistent, of 1–2 retrorsely [antrorsely] barbellate awns.

= 12.