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Sonchus L.

苦苣菜屬

Sonchus arvensis

Credit: HAST

Annual, biennial or perennial herbs, sometimes woody at base. Leaves alternate, usually auriculate-clasping, often with callose hairs or spinose on margins, entire or dentate or pinnatifid. Heads homogamous, many flowered, becoming swollen at base. Involucre ovoid or campanulate; bracts imbricate, in several series, herbaceous or membranaceous. Receptacle flat, glabrous. Corolla ligulate, yellow, truncate, 5-lobed. Anthers sagittate at base. Style branches slender. Achenes slightly flattened, 10-20-ribbed, slightly narrowed at both ends, beakless, oval to linear, glabrous. Pappus bristles copious, in many series, slender, snow white, connate at base into a ring, usually deciduous as a whole.

About 45 species, natives of the Old World, a few species widely distributed and naturalized; three species in Taiwan.


KEY TO SPECIES

1 Perennials with deep, creeping roots; heads 3-5 cm across in flower, fruiting involucre 14-22 mm long.   Sonchus arvensis
+ Annuals from a tap root; heads 1.5-2.5 cm across in flower, fruiting involucre 9-13 mm long.   (2)
       
2 (1) Leaf base auriculate, acute; mature achenes not transversely rugulose.   Sonchus asper
+ Leaf base auriculate, rounded; mature achenes transversely rugulose.   Sonchus oleraceus

Lower Taxa

Related Synonym(s):


 

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