Lagascea mollis Cav., Anales Sci. Nat. 6: 332. t. 44. 1803; Hook.f., Fl. Brit. India 3: 302. 1881.

Herbs up to 1 m high, white pubescent. Leaves distant, elliptic or ovate-lanceolate, margins shallowly and distantly serrate, acute at base, gradually acuminate at apex, 3 - 5 x 1 - 2 cm, softly white pubescent on both surfaces; petiole 2 cm long. Heads solitary, terminal, one flowered, aggregated in glomerule, 5 - 15 mm across, long peduncled, enclosed by acuminate, ovate-lanceolate, leafy, pubescent bracts; bracts 7 - 12 x 4 - 6 mm. Receptacle flat, pubescent. Involucre tubular-campanulate. Involucral bracts 4 - 5, linear- lanceolate, connate into a sheath below, 4 - 5 mm, long, acuminate, herbaceous. Florets white, bisexual; corolla tubular-campanulate, broadened above middle; tube narrowly cylindric below, 3 - 4 mm, 5-lobed. Stamens 5; anthers linear. Ovary oblong, faintly 3-quetrous, pubescent above; style bifid; stigma pubescent, curved inwards. Achenes black, 2.5 - 3 mm, compressed, 3-angled, weakly ribbed, pubescent above, glabrous below, enclosed within the involucre. Pappus of a fimbriate cup.

Fl. & Fr. April - Nov.

Distrib. India: American weed of cultivated fields, waste places and roadsides. Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

Malaya, Mexico and Tropical S. America.