飞廉族 fei lian zu

Authors: Zhu Shi, Eckhard von Raab-Straube, Werner Greuter & Ludwig Martins

Herbs, annual to perennial. Leaves alternate, sometimes all basal. Capitula homogamous or heterogamous, bisexual, sometimes unisexual in dioecious plants, persistent or deciduous, solitary or clustered at end of stem and branches, sometimes surrounded by ± leaflike spiny bracts. Phyllaries imbricate, undivided. Receptacle densely covered with bristles, rarely with short scales, or naked. Florets few to numerous. Corolla usually actinomorphic or slightly zygomorphic, equally or unequally 5-lobed or sometimes strongly zygomorphic in radiant florets of heterogamous capitula. Stamen filaments glabrous, papillose, or hairy; anther sagittate, base caudate; connective with a sterile apical appendage. Style branches distinct and divergent or coherent medially for most of their length and only seceding along stigmatic margins; sweeping hairs usually confined to a ringlike sometimes swollen zone at base of style branches or longest there and distally abruptly shorter. Achene usually glabrous, rarely ± hairy, apex with a peripheral rim surrounding an apical plate on which pappus is inserted; rim sometimes salient as an entire or dentate crown, sometimes inconspicuous.

About 75 genera and ca. 2,400 species: E and N Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America; 37 genera (four endemic, three introduced) and 440 species (237 endemic, five introduced) in China.