Guizotia

Annuals [perennials, subshrubs, or shrubs], [3–]20–200 cm. Stems erect [creeping], branched. Leaves mostly cauline; opposite (distal sometimes alternate); sessile; blades rhombic to lanceolate or oblanceolate [spatulate], margins entire or serrate, faces glabrous or puberulent to pilose, gland-dotted (at least abaxial). Heads radiate, in corymbiform arrays [borne singly]. Involucres campanulate [hemispheric], [8–]10–15[–20] mm diam. Phyllaries persistent, 10–13 in 2 series (distinct, outer 5–6+ oblong, herbaceous, inner narrower, more scarious). Receptacles conic to hemispheric, paleate (paleae oblong to lanceolate, plane [cucullate], membranous to scarious). Ray florets 6–18, pistillate, fertile; corollas yellow (hairy at bases of tubes). Disc florets 100+, bisexual, fertile; corollas yellow, tubes cylindric (hairy), shorter than campanulate throats, lobes 5, deltate. Cypselae weakly compressed, 3–4-angled, glabrous (shining); pappi 0. x = 15.

Distribution

Africa.

Discussion

Species 6 (1 in the flora).

Taxonomic affinities of Guizotia generally have been acknowledged as obscure; the genus has been placed in Coreopsidinae, Melampodiinae, Milleriinae, and Verbesininae.

Selected References

Baagøe, J. 1974. The genus Guizotia (Compositae). A taxonomic revision. Bot. Tidsskr. 69: 1–39.

Lower Taxa

Guizotia abyssinica