394. Conoclinium de Candolle in A. P. de Candolle and A. L. P. P. de Candolle, Prodr. 5: 135. 1836.
[Greek konos, cone, and kline, bed, alluding to conic receptacles]
Thomas F. Patterson, Guy L. Nesom
Perennials, 50–200 cm (usually rhizomatous, colonial, rhizomes relatively slender). Stems erect to decumbent (sometimes rooting at proximal nodes), not much branched distal to bases. Leaves cauline; opposite; petiolate; blades usually 3-nerved from bases, deltate, oblanceolate, ovate, ovate-deltate, oblong, or triangular, margins dentate or lobed (to dissected in C. dissectum), faces glabrate to puberulous, villosulous, or hispidulous, gland-dotted. Heads discoid, in tight, corymbiform arrays. Involucres hemispheric, 3–6 mm diam. Phyllaries persistent, ca. 25 in 2–3 series, obscurely 2–3-nerved, lanceolate to linear, ± equal (herbaceous). Receptacles conic, epaleate. Florets 35–70+; corollas usually blue to purple or violet, rarely white, throats narrowly funnelform (lengths ca. 4 times diams.); styles: bases not enlarged, glabrous, branches filiform to linear-clavate. Cypselae prismatic (bases narrowed), 5-ribbed, glabrous or sparsely gland-dotted and/or hispidulous; pappi persistent, of ca. 30 barbellate bristles in 1 series. x = 10.
Species 4 (3 in the flora): sw, e North America, Mexico.
SELECTED REFERENCE
Patterson, T. F. 1994. A Taxonomic Revision of Conoclinium DC. (Asteraceae, Eupatorieae). M.S. thesis. University of Texas.
