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Silphium
Family: Asteraceae
Silphium image
Paul Rothrock  
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Jennifer A. Clevinger in Flora of North America (vol. 21)
Perennials, 20-250+ cm (fibrous rooted, rhizomatous, or taprooted). Stems usually erect, usually branched (terete or square, often vernicose with resinous exudates). Leaves basal and cauline (basal persistent or withering before flowering); whorled, opposite, subopposite, or alternate (sometimes all conditions on one plant); petiolate or sessile; blades (1- or 3-nerved) deltate, elliptic, linear, ovate, or rhombic, sometimes 1-2-pinnately lobed or -pinnatifid, bases cordate or truncate to cuneate, margins entire or toothed, faces glabrous or hairy (sometimes stipitate-glandular). Heads radiate, in paniculiform or racemiform arrays. Involucres campanulate to hemispheric, 10-30 mm diam. Phyllaries persistent, 11-45 in 2-4 series (outer broader, foliaceous, inner smaller, thinner, each subtending a ray floret). Receptacles flat to slightly convex, paleate (paleae oblong, lanceolate, or linear). Ray florets 8-35+ in 1-4 series, pistillate, fertile; corollas yellow or white. Disc florets 20-200+, functionally staminate; corollas yellow or white, tubes much shorter than narrow, cylindric throats, lobes 5, deltate. Cypselae (black to brown) obflattened (± winged, shed alone without accessory structures); pappi 0, or persistent, of 2 awns (± confluent with cypsela shoulders and wings). x = 7. In keys and descriptions here, 'plants scapiform' indicates plants with distal cauline leaves notably smaller than basal and proximal cauline leaves, and 'plants caulescent' indicates plants with leaves ± uniform in size throughout; 'leaves persistent' indicates leaves persisting to flowering time, and 'leaves caducous' indicates leaves withering before flowering time.

Vascular plants of NE US and adjacent Canada
Heads radiate, the rays yellow, pistillate and fertile, their ovaries imbricate in 2-3 series; invol bracts subequal or imbricate in 2-several series, firm, herbaceous or partly membranous-chartaceous; receptacle flat, chaffy, its bracts (or sometimes in part the inner bracts of the invol) subtending rays as well as disk-fls; disk-fls sterile, with undivided style; ray-achenes glabrous, strongly flattened parallel to the invol bracts, wing- margined, pappus none, or of 2 awns confluent with the wings of the achene; coarse perennial herbs with medium-sized or large subhemispheric heads. 15, U.S.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
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Species within checklist: Konza Prairie Biological Station (KONZ) plants - Prairie Peninsula (D06)
Silphium laciniatum
Image of Silphium laciniatum
Map not
Available
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