5. Gerbera Linnaeus, Opera Var. 247. 1758.
火石花属 huo shi hua shu
Authors: Tiangang Gao & D. J. Nicholas Hind
Berniera Candolle; Lasiopus Cassini; Oreoseris Candolle.
Herbs, perennial, rhizomatous. Leaves rosulate; leaf blade oblanceolate, oblong, obovate, ovate, or subcircular, papery, herbaceous, or leathery, serrulate, dentate, repand, pinnatilobate, pinnatifid, or pinnatisect. Scapes 1, rarely many, slender, ebracteate or with few to many bracts. Capitula terminal, radiate, heterogamous, chasmogamous; involucres obconic to broadly campanulate; phyllaries multiseriate, imbricate; receptacles flat, alveolate, glabrous, epaleate. Florets all fertile, marginal uniseriate, female, bilabiate, outer female florets with obvious limbs, rarely tubular (Gerbera maxima), outer lip 3-denticulate at apex, inner deeply 2-lobed, lobes filiform, coiled; central florets numerous, bisexual, bilabiate, outer lips 3-toothed at apex, inner deeply 2-lobed; anther bases long tailed, apex appendaged; styles shallowly divided at apex, style branches short, abaxially pilose, apices obtuse, rounded, or subacute. Achenes terete or fusiform, ribbed, pilose or glabrous; pappus of scabrid bristles. 2n = 46, 50.
About 30 species: Africa, Asia; seven species (four endemic) in China.
There are no species of Gerbera in South America. The position of G. hieracioides (Kunth) Zardini is disputed. Based on Onoseris hieracioides Kunth, it probably belongs in Leibnitzia (known from both Asia and Central and North America) or Chaptalia Ventenat, having previously been transferred to Trichocline Cassini, as T. hieracioides (Kunth) Ferreyra.
Gerbera jamesonii Bolus is cultivated in China.
