Anthemis L.

Herbs, annual, biennial, perennial; stems simple or branched, pubescent. Leaves alternate, usually 1 - 3 pinnatisect, rarely simple; primary segments usually 3, sometimes finely pinnately or palmately divided into lobes. Heads solitary on more or less naked peduncles, radiate or discoid, hemispheric or turbinate or shrortly cylindrical. Involucral bracts 3-or many seriate, inner atleast generally narrowly or broadly scarious margined, outer shorter. Receptacle convex or conical, paleae linear-lanceolate, subulate or oblanceolate, scarious or cartilaginous, acute, mucronate or acuminate at apex, generally as long as disc florets, sometimes longer. Ray florets female, fertile or neuter, 1-seriate; ligule white or yellow, rarely purplish, base of corolla sometimes persistent on achenes. Disc florets hermaphrodite, fertile, tubular; limbs yellow, rarely purplish, 5-dentate, sometimes inflated at base but not saccate. Achenes usually obconical, terete, sometimes dorsiventrally compressed, smooth, ribbed or tuberculate. Pappus absent or very short, paleaceous or of a membranous large or small auricle.

N. & W. Asia and N. Africa; ca 200 species, 1 in India.

Literature. HARLING, G. (1960). Further embryological and taxonomic studies in Anthemis L. and some related genera. Sy. Bot. Tidskr. 54: 571 - 590.

List of Lower Taxa