Conyza floribunda |
Conyza |
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asthmaweed |
conyza, horseweed |
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Habit | Plants erect, 30–150+ cm, branched mostly distally. | Annuals [perennials], 10–120(–350+) cm. | ||||||||||||
Stems | usually erect, branched mostly distally (spreading and branched throughout in C. ramosissima), glabrous or hispid, hispidulous, strigillose, or strigose. |
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Leaves | faces sparsely strigose to hispidulous or glabrate (margins ± ciliolate proximally, hairs erect, on nerves); proximal narrowly oblanceolate to linear, 50–100 × 5–15 mm, toothed or entire; distal similar, smaller, entire. |
basal and cauline (mostly cauline at flowering); alternate; petiolate or sessile; blades mostly lanceolate to oblanceolate or linear, margins rarely lobed, ultimate toothed or entire, faces usually hispid, hispidulous, strigillose, or strigose (eglandular). |
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Involucres | 3–4 mm. |
± turbinate, 2–5[–7+] mm diam. |
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Receptacles | 1–2+ mm diam. in fruit. |
± flat, pitted or smooth, epaleate. |
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Pistillate florets | 30–40+; corollas ± equaling or surpassing styles, laminae 0 or to 0.3 mm. |
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Disc florets | 10–20+. |
3–30+, bisexual, fertile; corollas yellowish (nerves sometimes prominently resinous), tubes shorter than narrowly funnelform throats, lobes 5, erect or spreading, deltate; style-branch appendages deltate. |
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Phyllaries | usually sparsely strigose (at least the outer; margins chartaceous to scarious), outer greenish, becoming reddish brown, lanceolate, shorter, inner stramineous to reddish, lance-attenuate. |
20–40+ in 2–4 series, appressed (usually reflexed in fruit), the larger usually 3-nerved (midnerves orange to brownish; not notably keeled), lanceolate to linear, unequal, ± herbaceous medially, margins membranous, abaxial faces glabrous or hirsutulous, hispidulous, or strigose. |
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Heads | in paniculiform or corymbiform arrays. |
radiate or disciform, usually in spreading to strict, paniculiform or corymbiform arrays (borne ± singly in C. ramosissima). |
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Cypselae | pale tan (usually some with reddish nerves), 1–1.5 mm, faces sparsely strigillose or glabrate; pappi of 15–25 white bristles 2–3 mm. |
compressed, oblong to elliptic, 1-nerved on each edge, faces glabrous or strigillose (hairs 0.05–0.1+ mm), eglandular; pappi persistent, of 15–25+ pinkish, sordid, tawny, or white, ± equal, barbellulate, apically attenuate bristles in 1 series. |
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Peripheral | (“ray”) florets pistillate, fertile: either 20–45+ in 1–2+ series, corollas white to purplish (filiform with laminae filiform to elliptic, 0.1–1[–1.5+] mm), or 20–150+ in 2–5+ series, corollas ochroleucous (filiform, laminae lacking, distally truncate or 2–5-toothed). |
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x | = 9. |
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2n | = 18; 54 or 56. |
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Conyza floribunda |
Conyza |
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Phenology | Flowering summer–fall. | |||||||||||||
Habitat | Disturbed sites | |||||||||||||
Elevation | 10–100 m (0–300 ft) | |||||||||||||
Distribution |
CA; FL; Mexico; Central America; South America; Europe; Asia; Africa [Introduced in North America] |
Widespread; mostly in subtropical and warm-temperate zones |
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Discussion | Conyza floribunda is thought to be native to South America. In some floras of the past 50 or so years, Conyza bilbaoana has been treated as distinct from C. floribunda; in others, C. bilbaoana and C. floribunda have been treated as synonyms of C. bonariensis. For some traits (e.g., indument, phyllaries, florets), members of C. floribunda are intermediate to C. bonariensis and C. canadensis; some specimens that I have called C. floribunda may be hybrids. For example, a robust specimen from Santa Cruz Island, California, was originally labeled “C. bonariensis ×canadensis (?).” Locally (e.g., in Berkeley, California), C. canadensis usually comes into flower as C. bonariensis goes to seed. So far as sampled, C. canadensis is diploid; C. bonariensis is hexaploid. Pollen stainability in the Santa Cruz Island specimen is ca. 99%. If treated as a variety of Conyza bonariensis, the correct name for the taxon treated here as C. floribunda is C. bonariensis var. leiotheca. Some botanists, e.g., J. B. Marshall (1974), have treated the nomenclatural types of Conyza floribunda and C. sumatrensis (Retzius) E. Walker (= Erigeron sumatrensis Retzius) as conspecific. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Species 25–40+ (4 in the flora). Distinctions between Conyza and Erigeron, as usually circumscribed in the past 50+ years, are not always clear. Usually, conyzas have unequal (graduated) phyllaries and 2–20+ times as many pistillate florets as bisexual florets in each head (rarely more bisexual than pistillate), and corollas of pistillate florets either lack laminae or have laminae usually less than 1(–1.5) mm. Erigerons usually have subequal phyllaries and more bisexual than pistillate florets (rarely more pistillate than bisexual) and corollas of pistillate florets (if any) usually have laminae 2–10+ mm. In studies by R. D. Noyes (2000) and by Noyes and L. H. Rieseberg (1999), Conyza, as traditionally circumscribed, was found to be nested within Erigeron and to be para- and/or polyphyletic. Here, absent an alternate taxonomy, four species traditionally treated in Conyza are retained in Conyza and a separate suite of six species that have usually been included in Conyza are treated in Laënnecia. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 20, p. 350. | FNA vol. 20, p. 348. | ||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Asteraceae > tribe Astereae > Conyza | Asteraceae > tribe Astereae | ||||||||||||
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Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||
Synonyms | C. bilbaoana, C. bonariensis var. leiotheca | |||||||||||||
Name authority | Kunth: in A. von Humboldt et al., Nov. Gen. Sp. 4(fol.): 57. (1818) | Lessing: Syn. Gen. Compos., 203. (1832) | ||||||||||||
Web links |