Flora of North America species comparison

1–several, erect, simple or sparingly branched, villous with septate hairs and thinly arachnoid-tomentose with long, simple hairs.

1–few, erect or ascending, openly branched distally, villous to scabrous with septate hairs and loosely tomentose, ± glabrate.

thinly villous and ± tomentose, glabrate;

proximal leaves winged-petiolate, blades 10–30 cm, margins entire or remotely dentate to pinnately lobed;

mid and distal leaves sessile, blades decurrent, ovate to oblong or lanceolate, entire or remotely denticulate.

basal and proximal cauline petiolate, blades oblanceolate or elliptic, 5–25 cm, margins entire or shallowly dentate to irregularly pinnately lobed;

distal cauline sessile, not decurrent, blades linear to lanceolate, gradually smaller, entire or dentate.

ovoid to ± campanulate, 20–25 mm.

ovoid to campanulate or hemispheric, 15–18 mm, usually ± as wide as high.

35–60+;

sterile florets 10–20, corollas blue (white, purple, or pink), 2.5–4.5 cm, corolla tube elongate.

40–100+, all fertile or the peripheral sterile;

corollas purple (rarely white), those of sterile florets ± expanded and exceeding corollas of fertile florets, those of fertile florets 15–18 mm.

25–40+;

corollas purple, ca. 20 mm;

anthers dark blue-purple.

tips truncate, irregularly dentate or lobed.

radiant, borne singly or in few-headed corymbiform arrays; (peduncles to 7 cm).

usually radiant (rarely discoid), in few-headed corymbiform arrays, borne on leafy-bracted peduncles.

± brown, 5–6 mm, sericeous;

pappi of bristles 0.5–1.5 mm.

tan, 2.5–3 mm, finely hairy;

pappi 0 or of many unequal, sometimes caducous bristles 0.5–1 mm.

phyllaries: bodies greenish, ovate to lanceolate, scarious-margined, appendages appressed, brown to black, unarmed, decurrent on phyllary margins, pectinate-fringed, puberulent;

innermost phyllaries sometimes unappendaged.

phyllaries: bodies lanceolate to ovate, loosely tomentose or glabrous, usually concealed by expanded appendages, appendages erect, overlapping, light to dark brown, flat or ± concave, margins varying from coarsely dentate to pectinately dissected into ± wiry lobes.

= 24 (Germany), 40 (Russia), 44 (France).

= 22 (England), 44.