Sclerocarpus Jacq.

Shrubs or herbs with slender, pubescent stem. Leaves alternate, sometimes opposite below, elliptic-ovate to filiform dissected, serrate, pubescent, scabrous above; petiole slender, sometimes short or even absent. Heads radiate, on long, stout peduncles, enclosed in leafy involucral bracts. Ray florets few; corolla elliptic, conspicuously notched at the apex. Ovary as long as corolla tube, sterile. Disc florets many; corolla tubular with elongate apical strigose lobes. Stamens dark. Ovary turbinate; style branches cylindrical, pilose. Pappus a ring of hairs or squamellae or even absent. Fruit a utricle, the sclerified paleae sometimes strongly oblique, generally with a beak, fused to the achene apex.

Temperate and tropical America and Africa; ca 8 species, 1 in India.

List of Lower Taxa