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Microseris

Microseris
Family: Asteraceae
Microseris image
  • FNA
  • Gleason & Cronquist
  • Resources
Kenton L. Chambers in Flora of North America (vol. 19, 20 and 21)
Annuals or perennials, 5-120 cm; taprooted or with caudices (in perennial species; M. borealis rhizomatous). Stems 1-30+, erect. simple or relatively few- to many-branched (naked or leafy proximally and often distally), glabrous or scurfy-pubescent (especially proximal to heads). Leaves mostly basal, cauline 0 or reduced; petiolate (petioles broad to narrow); blades linear to lanceolate or oblanceolate, margins entire, lacerate, dentate, or pinnately lobed (often with narrow rachises and linear lobes; apices acuminate or acute to obtuse, faces glabrous or lightly scurfy-puberulent). Heads borne singly (nodding or inclined in bud, erect in flower and fruit). Peduncles (erect or curved-ascending) not distally inflated, ebracteate (annuals) or leafy (perennials except M. borealis). Calyculi 0 (outer phyllaries forming calyculiform series in annuals). Involucres fusiform, ovoid, globose, or campanulate, 3-30 mm diam. Phyllaries 5-40 in 3-5 series, unequal (outer usually shorter, ± deltate, inner ± lanceolate), herbaceous (midveins often thickened; abaxial faces glabrous or scurfy-puberulent, sometimes black-villous, often adaxially black-villous and minutely white-strigillose). Receptacles flat to low-convex, pitted, glabrous, epaleate. Florets 5-300; corollas yellow to orange or white, outer often purplish abaxially. Cypselae gray to brown or purplish, sometimes purplish-spotted, columnar, obconic, or fusiform (basal callosities knoblike), apices truncate, ribs 10-15, smooth or scabrous (white-villous on marginal cypselae in some species); pappi persistent, usually of 5-30, silvery to yellowish, brownish, or blackish aristate scales (often reduced to 0-4 in M. douglasii, of 24-48 bristles in M. borealis), scale bodies deltate, lanceolate, oblong, ovate, orbiculate, or linear, apices obtuse to acute or lacerate, faces glabrous or villous, aristae barbellulate to barbellate or plumose. x = 9.

A broad circumscription of Microseris, including Apargidium and excluding Nothocalaïs, has usually been accepted (e.g., K. L. Chambers 1955, 1960). Recently, molecular data have led to reinstatement of the monotypic genus Uropappus and separation of two other species as the allotetraploid genus Stebbinsoseris (R. K. Jansen et al. 1991b; Chambers 1993c). A large body of literature has resulted from use of Microseris as a model genetic system by K. Bachmann and colleagues (e.g., Bachmann et al. 1979; Bachmann 1992; Bachmann and J. Battjes 1994). Differences in the diploid DNA amount within and between species have been studied by H. J. Price and colleagues (Price and Bachmann 1975; Price et al. 1981, 1983). Additional genetic studies, not referenced here, have involved three species from Australia, New Zealand, and Chile, widely disjunct from the main center of distribution in western North America. Ten of the species are diploid (2n = 18); the four tetraploid species (2n = 36) are of alloploid origin. The nine North American perennial taxa are closely related and mostly allopatric, occupying different habitats or climatic zones. The five annual species, which sometimes occur in sympatric clusters, are difficult to distinguish without the presence of cypselae.

In keys and descriptions, measurements of pappus scales exclude aristae.

Vascular plants of NE US and adjacent Canada
Fls all ligulate and perfect, yellow; invol campanulate or narrower; achenes columnar to fusiform, but scarcely beaked, with a whitish basal callosity, ca 10-ribbed; pappus of 5-many members, these commonly with paleaceous base and slender, bristle-like tip, varying (in spp. approaching Agoseris) to merely obscurely flattened capillary bristles; lactiferous herbs with a taproot, entire to pinnatifid lvs, and 1-many heads on long naked peduncles. 25, chiefly w. U.S.

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

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Species within checklist: Sage-Grouse Preferred Forbs, NV
Microseris acuminata
Media resource of Microseris acuminata
Map not
Available
Microseris alpestris
Media resource of Microseris alpestris
Map not
Available
Microseris attenuata
Media resource of Microseris attenuata
Map not
Available
Microseris bigelovii
Media resource of Microseris bigelovii
Map not
Available
Microseris bolanderi
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Microseris borealis
Media resource of Microseris borealis
Map not
Available
Microseris callicarpha
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Microseris campestris
Media resource of Microseris campestris
Map not
Available
Microseris decipiens
Media resource of Microseris decipiens
Map not
Available
Microseris douglasii
Media resource of Microseris douglasii
Map not
Available
Microseris elegans
Media resource of Microseris elegans
Map not
Available
Microseris howellii
Media resource of Microseris howellii
Map not
Available
Microseris indivisa
Media resource of Microseris indivisa
Map not
Available
Microseris laciniata
Media resource of Microseris laciniata
Map not
Available
Microseris leucocarpha
Media resource of Microseris leucocarpha
Map not
Available
Microseris major
Media resource of Microseris major
Map not
Available
Microseris melanocarpha
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Microseris nigrescens
Media resource of Microseris nigrescens
Map not
Available
Microseris nutans
Media resource of Microseris nutans
Map not
Available
Microseris oligantha
Media resource of Microseris oligantha
Map not
Available
Microseris paludosa
Media resource of Microseris paludosa
Map not
Available
Microseris proxima
Media resource of Microseris proxima
Map not
Available
Microseris pygmaea
Media resource of Microseris pygmaea
Map not
Available
Microseris scapigera
Media resource of Microseris scapigera
Map not
Available
Microseris sylvatica
Media resource of Microseris sylvatica
Map not
Available
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