Tepion alatum Britton

• Title

  Tepion alatum Britton

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Tepion alatum Britton

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Tepion alatum Capitaneja Tepion Family Carduaceae Thistle Family Verbesina alata Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 901. 1753. Tepion alatum Brit ton, Bulletin of The New York Botanical Garden 8: 408. 1917. Included by some botanical authors in the genus Verbesina, but well characterized by different features of its pappus, this annual, herbaceous weed, with orange-colored flowers, is of West Indian distribution only, from Cuba to St.Thomas, and St. Croix, in Guadeloupe and in Jamaica; in which of the islands it originated can not be ascertained; in Porto Rico it grows in waste and cultivated grounds, at lower and middle elevations, appearing as if introduced; when first known botanically it was described as from Curaçao, but is not known to grow there now. The genus was established by the French botanist Adanson in 1763, and is monotypic; the derivation of the name Tepion is unexplained. Tepion alatum (winged, the stem is winged by the decurrent leaf-bases) is an upright, hairy herb, unbranched, or with few branches, from 15 to 70 centimeters high. Its broad, coarsely toothed, thin leaves are alternate, blunt, or pointed, the lower ones stalked, from 7 to 15 centimeters long, the upper without stalks and smaller. The flower-heads, about 1.5 centimeters broad, are borne on stalks from 6 to 12 centimeters long, with a hemispheric involucre about 5 millimeters high, composed of oblong bracts in about 2 series; the ray-flowers are pistillate and fertile; the disk-flowers are perfect, and also fertile, their corollas funnelform and 5-toothed. The obovate, broadly winged, hairy achenes are about 4 millimeters long, bearing a pappus of only 2 awns, 2 or 3 millimeters long, one of them straight, the other longer and hooked.