Diaperia prolifera |
Diaperia prolifera var. prolifera |
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big-head rabbit-tobacco, bighead pygmycudweed |
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Habit | Plants grayish green to silvery, 3–15 cm, sericeous to lanuginose. | Plants mostly grayish green, 3–15 cm, loosely lanuginose. | ||||
Stems | mostly 2–10; branches proximal and distal (distal opposite or, sometimes, appearing alternate when unequal), rarely none. |
mostly 2–10; branches ± equal, distal mostly spreading to ascending. |
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Leaves | largest 7–15 × 2–4 mm; capitular leaves subtending glomerules, also visible between and surpassing heads. |
largest 9–15 × 2–4 mm; capitular leaves usually ± spreading, scarcely involucral, not or scarcely carinate, pliant to somewhat rigid. |
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Receptacles | broadly or narrowly conic, 0.4–0.6 mm or ± 0.9–1.1 mm, heights 0.5–0.7 or 2–2.4 times diams. |
broadly conic, 0.4–0.6 mm, heights mostly 0.5–0.7 times diams. |
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Bisexual florets | 0. |
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Heads | in strictly dichasiform or pseudo-polytomous arrays (sometimes appearing monochasiiform), cylindric to ± ellipsoid, 3.5–4.5 mm, heights 2–3 times diams. |
4–40+ in largest glomerules. |
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Cypselae | ± angular, obcompressed, mostly 0.9–1.2 mm. |
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Pistillate | paleae imbricate, longest 2.5–4 mm. |
paleae: longest 3.3–4 mm. |
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Staminate | paleae ± 3, apices erect to somewhat spreading, ± plane. |
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Functionally | staminate florets 2–4; ovaries partly developed, 0.4–0.6 mm; corollas hidden in heads, actinomorphic, 1.4–2 mm, glabrous, lobes equal. |
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Diaperia prolifera |
Diaperia prolifera var. prolifera |
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Phenology | Flowering and fruiting (Apr–)May–Jun(–Sep). | |||||
Habitat | Dry, open, often disturbed silty to clay soils, barren to grassy, brushy, or wooded slopes, plains, prairies, toward s and e usually over carbonate (limestone, chalk) | |||||
Elevation | 90–1500(–2200) m (300–4900(–7200) ft) | |||||
Distribution |
AL; AR; CO; KS; LA; MO; MS; MT; NE; NM; OK; SD; TX; WY
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AL; AR; CO; KS; LA; MO; MS; MT; NE; NM; OK; SD; TX; WY |
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Discussion | Varieties 2 (2 in the flora). Intermediates between the two varieties of Diaperia prolifera occur where their ranges meet in central Texas and central Oklahoma. The strictly dichasiform or pseudo-polytomous branching pattern of D. prolifera is distinctive and diagnostic within the genus. Specimens of D. prolifera from introductions around a wool mill in South Carolina (G. L. Nesom 2004c, as Evax prolifera) are as yet undetermined to variety and are not included in the distributions below. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Variety prolifera occupies a broad crescent from western South Dakota and southeastern Montana to northeastern New Mexico, central and eastern Texas (nearly to Mexico), southern Missouri, and southwestern Arkansas, with outliers in chalk prairies of southern Mississippi and southern Alabama. A specimen of it (mixed with other Californian Filagininae) collected in 1903 is purportedly from southern California; it might represent an introduction that did not persist or an accidental admixture from another collection. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 19, p. 462. | FNA vol. 19, p. 463. | ||||
Parent taxa | Asteraceae > tribe Gnaphalieae > Diaperia | Asteraceae > tribe Gnaphalieae > Diaperia > Diaperia prolifera | ||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Synonyms | Evax prolifera | |||||
Name authority | (Nuttall ex de Candolle) Nuttall: Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc., n. s. 7: 338. (1840) | unknown | ||||
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