Verbesina
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Authority
Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.
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Family
Asteraceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Genus Description - Herbs, shrubs, or small trees; stems sometimes winged. Leaves simple, alternate or sometimes opposite; blades chartaceous nearly coriaceous, entire, lobed, or pinnatifid, frequently decurrent forming wings on the petioles and stems, pinnately veined, more or less scabrous, seldom glabrous, the lower surface occasionally tomentose or discolorous; petioles sometimes winged. Inflorescence mostly of corymbiform panicles of several to many heads, but heads occasionally solitary on long peduncles. Heads radiate (in ours) or occasionally discoid; involucre hemispheric to bell-shaped, sometimes subtended by bracteoles; involucral bracts subequal to 2-6- seriate, ovate to oblanceolate or linear, often herbaceous; receptacle commonly conical, paleate, the palea concave, folded around the outer edge of the laterally compressed disk achenes. Flowers with corollas orange-yellow to white, these glabrous to more commonly pilose, especially on the tubes. Ray flowers (when present) pistillate or less commonly sterile; corolla tubes commonly shorter than limbs, the limb apically 3-dentate or entire. Disk flowers bisexual; corollas tubular, shortly 5-lobed; anthers black, the apical appendage cream-colored; style branch tips commonly pilose. Achenes strongly flattened, winged or less commonly wingless, glabrous or more commonly upwardly pubescent, sometimes tuberculate, oblong or obovoid; pappus mostly of 2 deciduous or persistent well-developed awns, 1 or both rarely obsolete.
Distribution and Ecology - A genus of about 300 species restricted to the New World, with most of the species in the tropics.