Waldheimia Kar. & Kir.

Herbs, perennial, diffuse or tufted. Leaves alternate, cuneate, 3 - 5-toothed, Pinnatisect. Heads heterogamous, hemispheric, often large, terminal, sessile or peduncled. Involucral bracts many-seriate, margins scarious, lacerate, often black. Receptacle flat, naked. Ray florets neuter, 1-seriate; ligule white, rosy or liliac, spreading, entire. Disc florets yellow, hermaphrodite, fertile, tubular; limb 5-fid. Anther bases truncate or with short connate auricles. Style arms of hermaphrodite florets broad with truncate penicillate tips. Achenes of hermaphrodite florets 5-angled, glabrous and glandualr; of female empty. Pappus of rigid brown or reddish, wavy flattened bristles, sometimes dialated at the tips and with split margins.

Predominently Himalayan and C. Asiatic; ca 8 species, 5 in India in alpine regions.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Leaves cuneiform, 3-fid or 3-lobed or toothed

2

b. Leaves oblong or linear oblong, 1 - 2-pinnatifid or 2-pinnatisect

4

2a. Glabrous or feebly woolly herbs; heads more than 2 cm in diam.; pappus slender, not dialated at tips

1. Waldheimia glabra

b. Densely woolly herbs; heads less than 2 cm in diam.; pappus more or less dilated at tips

3

3a. Heads short peduncled; involucral bracts membranous with broad, pale brown, deeply fimbriate margins

5. Waldheimia vestita

b. Heads sessile; involucral bracts woolly with narrow, brown scarious margins

2. Waldheimia nivea

4a. Woolly herbs; involucral bracts woolly

4. Waldheimia tomentosa

b. Glabrous herbs; involucral bracts glabrous

3. Waldheimia stoliczkai

List of Lower Taxa