Flora of North America species comparison

1 (bases relatively thick), ascending to erect, branched distally or ± throughout (striate).

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).

mostly cauline; opposite; obscurely petiolate or sessile;

blades mostly pinnately lobed [undivided] (lobes 3–5, usually linear to filiform, sometimes lanceolate), ultimate margins usually entire, sometimes denticulate (often ciliate, at least proximally, apices acute), faces glabrous [hairy].

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

cylindric to obconic, 2–5 mm diam. (larger in fruit).

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).

concave to flat, paleate;

paleae similar to phyllaries, oblong or oval to lanceolate or linear (± embracing cypselae, ± hyaline with brown striae, apices obtuse, apiculate).

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.

1–3[–8], pistillate, fertile;

corollas pale yellow [orange].

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.

3–10[–20+], bisexual, fertile;

corollas ± yellow (at least distally), tubes shorter than funnelform throats, lobes 5, deltate.

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

3–5+ in ± 2 series, distinct, erect, mostly oblong or ovate, equal, membranous.

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

of (1–)3–5+ erect, narrowly spatulate or linear to filiform, herbaceous bractlets (often surpassing phyllaries, margins usually hispid-ciliate).

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

radiate, borne singly or in loose, cymiform arrays.

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.

(± dimorphic) outer obcompressed, ellipsoid or obovoid, winged (wings ± corky, often cucullate and/or pectinate), faces often corky-tuberculate, glabrous, inner ± obovoid, usually some (innermost) tapered to ± barbellate beaks;

pappi 0, or persistent or tardily falling, of (1–)2–3 spreading to reflexed, retrorsely barbellate awns.

= 25.