Annuals, to 50 cm; taprooted, not spiny. Stems erect, branched, leafy; branches few–many, ascending. Leaves basal and cauline; winged-petiolate (basal and proximal cauline) or sessile (mid and distal cauline); blade margins entire to dentate or pinnately divided, faces villous (hairs septate), minutely glandular. Heads radiant, borne singly or in few-headed corymbiform arrays. Involucres ovoid, 10–15 mm diam. Phyllaries many in several series, unequal, appressed, ovate to lanceolate, margins entire, apices acute, tipped by ascending, spreading or reflexed, flattened spines. Receptacles flat, epaleate, bristly. Florets: peripheral neuter; corollas pink to purple, [blue, or yellow], spreading, lobes (5–6), linear; inner fertile, corollas pink to purple, [blue, yellow, or oarea, colored like the outer or not], tubes slender, throats narrowly cylindric, lobes linear-oblong; anther bases tailed, apical appendages lanceolate; style branches: fused portions with minutely hairy nodes, distinct portions short, linear. Cypselae ± barrel-shaped, weakly compressed, ribbed, apices with prominent collars, faces pitted, attachment scars lateral (excavated, surrounded by prominent rims, with eliasomes); pappi persistent, of several series of many distinct, white to tawny, narrow scales. x = 8, 12, 13, 14.

Distribution

Introduced; Europe (Mediterranean region), w Asia, Macaronesia, ne Africa.

Discussion

Species 16 (1 in the flora).

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

Volutaria muricata