Lagascea

Shrubs [annuals, perennials], to 50–100[–300] cm. Stems erect [ascending to decumbent], branched from bases or ± throughout. Leaves cauline; opposite; petiolate [sessile]; blades 3-nerved, lance-ovate to ovate [lanceolate to oblanceolate], bases broadly cuneate [to subauriculate], margins ± serrate, faces usually sericeous to strigose or glabrate, often stipitate-glandular. Heads discoid, borne in headlike glomerules (of [8–]30–50+, 1(–2)[–8]-flowered heads, glomerules borne singly or in ± corymbiform [racemiform] arrays). Involucres cylindric, 1–2 mm diam. (glomerules of heads usually subtended by leaves or ± foliaceous bracts). Phyllaries persistent, 4–5[–8+] in ± 1 series (linear-attenuate, proximally connate, often 1 or more with 1[–3+] glands in abaxial face). Receptacles convex (often hirtellous), rarely paleate (paleae linear). Ray florets 0. Disc florets 1(–2)[–8], bisexual, fertile; corollas yellow [white, pink, or red], tubes shorter than cylindric to campanulate throats, lobes 5, lance-linear to lance-ovate [rounded-deltate] (often hairy). Cypselae (brown to black) narrowly cylindric to obovoid or clavate (faces glabrous or pilosulous, minutely grooved); pappi ± coroniform. x = 17.

Distribution

sw United States, Mexico, Central America (to Nicaragua), introduced in West Indies, South America, Asia (India, Java, Sri Lanka, Thailand), Africa, Pacific Islands (Hawaii).

Discussion

Species 8 (1 in the flora).

Lagascea mollis Cavanilles, now a nearly pantropical weed, was collected at Apalachicola, Franklin County, Florida (Chapman, n.d., presumably ca. 1860), evidently from an ephemeral population, probably from ballast.