Cousinia Cass.

Herbs, thistle-like. Leaves alternate, toothed, lobed or pinnatisect, spinescent. Heads homogamous, globose, ovoid or oblong, solitary or crowded, rarely corymbose. Flowers white or purple, all similar, usually bisexual, tubular; limb cylindric, slender, usually unequal, 5-fid. Involucral bracts many-seriate, appressed with long, erect, spreading or recurved, spmous tips; Inner erect, slender, scanous. Receptacle flat, densely bristly. Filaments glabrous; anther bases Sagittate; auricles connate; tails branched or villous. Style arms narrow, short or long. Achenes, usually obovate or oblong, compressed, glabrous, 5-many ribbed. Pappus hairs 1-seriate, slender or flattened, simple, free, caducous, rarely absent.

E. Mediterranean to C. Asia; ca 400 species, 5 in India.

Literature. RECHINGER, K.H. (1912) Flora Iranica. 90 (1,5): 1-329. SCHTEPA, 1.5. (1962). Palynological data for the Systematic; of the genus Cousinia Cass. Pollen et Spores 4(2):375.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Bristles of receptacle quite smooth

4. Cousinia prolifera

b. Bristles of receptacle more or less rough

2

2a. Pappus present, scabrid

3

b. Pappus absent or very shon

4

3a. Heads fascicled; involucral bracts straight

2. Cousinia falconeri

b. Heads not fascicled; involucral bracta spreading or recurved

5. Cousinia thomsonii

4a. Branches spinous winged

3. Cousinia microcarpa

b. Branches not winged

1. Cousinia auriculata

List of Lower Taxa