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Family: Asteraceae
annual monsterwort
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Leaf blades mostly 10-30, 8-25 cm, distal smaller. Heads 10-100+ together. Cypselae obovoid, somewhat cucullate, 1.8-2 mm, often tuberculate, glabrous. 2n = 36. Flowering mostly summer. Desert slopes, washes, southern exposures; 900-1400 m; Ariz.; Mexico (Baja California Sur, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Sonora). FNA 2006, Wiggins 1964, Kearney and Peebles 1969 Duration: Annual Nativity: Native Lifeform: Forb/Herb General: Moderately to profusely branched herb to 2 m tall. Leaves: Ample, blades lance-ovate to broadly ovate-cordate, 1-15 cm broad, 3-20 cm long, upper smaller ones entire, larger coarsely and irregularly dentate, bright green and sparsely puberulent to glabrate above, paler and more densely puberulent beneath; petioles to 10 cm long, blades decurrent on upper portion. Flowers: Panicles 10-40 cm long, involucres 4-5 mm in diameter at anthesis; bracts obtuse or rounded, thin, densely short-puberulent and somewhat scurfy; corollas of sterile disk flowers 1-1.3 mm long, tube very short, abruptly expanding into narrowly funnelform throat, lobes minute, densely cobwebby with hairs of adjacent corollas intertangled; corollas of pistillate flowers tubular, about 0.3 mm long or less. Fruits: Cypselae 1-1.3 mm long, ovoid, compressed, attached to and falling with paleae of 2 disk flowers immediately adjacent. Ecology: Found along watercourses, hillsides, and mesas from 3,500-5,000 ft (1067-1524 m); flowers February-September. Notes: Endemic to Arizona. Very unique in appearance, with stalks to 5 cm in diameter, or larger. Odd flowers; plant appears to be farinose. Ethnobotany: Unknown Etymology: Parthenice alludes to members of the genus Parthenium, mollis means soft or with soft velvety hair. Synonyms: None Editor: SBuckley, 2010 |
