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cupid's shaving brush, lilac tasselflower

Habit Plants 20–80 cm, glabrous or ± villous.
Stems

1, erect or somewhat lax, simple or branched.

Leaves

mostly in proximal 1/2; usually petiolate;

blades ovate to obovate or oblanceolate, mostly 5–12 × 1.5–4.5 cm (distal smaller, bractlike), margins often deeply lobed to lyrate-pinnatifid.

Involucres

urceolate to campanulate, 9–12 mm, relatively slender, lengths mostly 3–4 times diams.

Florets

15–30[–40], surpassing involucres by 0–1(–2) mm;

corollas usually lavender, pinkish, or purplish, rarely reddish, lobes 0.5–0.7[–1.5] mm;

style appendages 0–0.1 mm.

Phyllaries

usually 8.

2n

= 10.

Emilia sonchifolia

Phenology Flowering probably year round, mostly Oct–Mar.
Habitat Disturbed sites, old fields, roadsides
Elevation 0–100 m (0–300 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
FL; GA; SC; Asia [Introduced in North America; also introduced in New World tropics]
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Emilia sonchifolia is a pantropical weed of Asiatic origin and should be expected as an occasional escape in the flora. D. H. Nicolson (1980) treated the eastern Asian representatives of E. sonchifolia, which have corolla lobes 1.1–1.5 mm, as E. sonchifolia var. javanica (Burman f.) Mattfeld. In the flora, plants of E. sonchifolia have corolla lobes 0.5–0.8 mm and are treated as var. sonchifolia. See Nicolson (p. 398) for discussion of nomenclatural attribution.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 20, p. 606.
Parent taxa Asteraceae > tribe Senecioneae > Emilia
Sibling taxa
E. fosbergii
Synonyms Cacalia sonchifolia
Name authority (Linnaeus) de Candolle: in R. Wight, Contr. Bot. India, 24. (1834)
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