Astranthium integrifolium

Annuals (biennials-), usually fibrous-rooted. Stems usually 1, erect to decumbent-ascending. Leaves: basal and proximal cauline 30-60 × 7-22 mm. Involucres 3.5-6 mm. Ray florets (8-)16-26; corolla laminae white, occasionally drying with bluish midstripe abaxially, (6-)8-17 mm. Disc floret corollas 2.5-3.7 mm. Cypselae (1.4-)1.6-2(-2.2) × 0.9-1.1 mm, faces minutely papillate-pebbly, linear striations barely discernible, usually glabrous, sometimes sparsely glochidiate-hairy distally. 2n = 8.

Flowering Apr-Jun(-Jul). Rocky (limestone) banks and ridges, alluvial fields, stream banks and terraces, open juniper woods, glades, roadsides; 50-300 m; Ala., Ga., Ky., Miss., Tenn.

Annual 5-45 cm, sparingly to freely branched (often from near the base) when well developed, sparsely hairy, more densely so at base; lvs small, to 8 נ2 cm, the lower oblanceolate or spatulate, the others mostly linear to elliptic; disk 5-10 mm wide; rays 8-30, mostly blue or purple, 6-12 mm; achenes minutely glandular-glochidiate; 2n=8. Wooded, often sandy places, or on barrens or along roadsides; Ky. to nw. Ga., w. to se. Kans., Okla., Tex., and n. Mex. Apr.- July. (Bellis i.) Ours is var. integrifolium.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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