Cosmos |
Cosmos caudatus |
|||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
cosmos |
wild cosmos |
|||||||||||||
Habit | Annuals [perennials or subshrubs], 30–250 cm. | Plants 30–250 cm, glabrous or sparsely hispid. | ||||||||||||
Stems | usually 1, erect or ascending, branched distally or ± throughout. |
|||||||||||||
Leaves | mostly cauline; opposite; petiolate or sessile; blades usually 1–3-pinnately lobed [undivided], ultimate margins usually entire, faces usually glabrous, sometimes glabrate, hispid, puberulent, or scabridulous. |
petioles 1–7 cm; blades 10–20 cm, ultimate lobes 2–10 mm wide, margins spinulose-ciliate, apices acute, often mucronulate. |
||||||||||||
Peduncles | 10–30 cm. |
|||||||||||||
Involucres | hemispheric or subhemispheric [cylindric], 3–15 mm diam. |
5–15 mm diam. |
||||||||||||
Receptacles | flat, paleate; paleae falling, linear, flat or slightly concave-convex, scarious (entire). |
|||||||||||||
Ray florets/ |
[0, 5] 8 (more in “double” cultivars), neuter; corollas white to pink or purple, or yellow to red-orange. |
rose-pink to purple, laminae oblong-oblanceolate, 5–15 mm, apices obtusely 3-lobed. |
||||||||||||
Disc florets/ |
10–20[–80+], bisexual, fertile; corollas yellow [orange] (at least distally), tubes shorter than funnelform throats, lobes 5, ± deltate (staminal filaments hairy near anthers; style branches linear, flattened, thicker distally, hirtellous, appendages relatively slender). |
5–6 mm. |
||||||||||||
Phyllaries | persistent, [5–]8 in ± 2 series, distinct, lanceolate, lance-oblong, lance-ovate, or oblong, ± equal, membranous or herbaceous, margins ± scarious. |
erect, oblong-lanceolate, 7–11 mm, apices acute to obtuse. |
||||||||||||
Calyculi | of [5–]8 basally connate, ± linear to subulate, herbaceous (striate) bractlets. |
of usually spreading, linear-subulate bractlets 6–10 mm, apices acuminate. |
||||||||||||
Heads | radiate, borne singly or in corymbiform arrays. |
|||||||||||||
Cypselae | (dark brown or black) relatively slender, quadrangular-cylindric or -fusiform [outer somewhat obcompressed], sometimes slightly arcuate, attenuate-beaked, not winged [winged], faces glabrous or hispid to scabridulous or ± setose, sometimes papillate, usually with 1 groove; pappi persistent [falling], of 2–4[–8] retrorsely [antrorsely] barbed awns, sometimes 0. |
12–35 mm, glabrous or scabridulous proximally, setose distally; pappi of 2–3 widely divergent to reflexed awns 3–5 mm. |
||||||||||||
x | = 12. |
|||||||||||||
2n | = 48. |
|||||||||||||
Cosmos |
Cosmos caudatus |
|||||||||||||
Phenology | Flowering summer–fall. | |||||||||||||
Habitat | Disturbed sites | |||||||||||||
Elevation | 0–10 m (0–0 ft) | |||||||||||||
Distribution |
Tropical and subtropical America; especially Mexico; widely introduced elsewhere |
FL; Mexico; Central America; South America; West Indies [Introduced in North America; also introduced in Asia, Pacific Islands] |
||||||||||||
Discussion | Species ca. 26 (4 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Within the flora area, Cosmos caudatus is found only in the Florida Keys. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
||||||||||||
Key |
|
|||||||||||||
Source | FNA vol. 21, p. 203. | FNA vol. 21, p. 204. | ||||||||||||
Parent taxa | ||||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||
Name authority | Cavanilles: Icon. 1: 9, plate 14. (1791) | Kunth: in A. von Humboldt et al., Nov. Gen. Sp. 4(fol.): 188. (1818) | ||||||||||||
Web links |