Stevia

Annuals, perennials, subshrubs, or shrubs, 50-120+ cm. Stems erect, usually branched. Leaves cauline; all or mostly opposite or mostly alternate; petiolate or sessile; blades 1- or 3-nerved, deltate, lanceolate, lance-elliptic, lance-linear, elliptic-oblong, linear, ovate, or trullate, margins entire or serrate, serrulate, or toothed, faces hirtellous, puberulent, glabrescent, or glabrous (sometimes shiny), sometimes gland-dotted. Heads discoid, in loose to dense, corymbiform arrays. Involucres ± cylindric, (1-)2-3 mm diam. Phyllaries persistent, 5(-6) in ± 1 series, 2-3-nerved, ovate or oblong to lanceolate or linear, ± equal (herbaceous). Receptacles flat or convex, epaleate. Florets 5(-6); corollas purple to pink or white, throats narrowly funnelform (lengths 3-4 times diams., ± hirtellous inside); styles: bases sometimes enlarged, glabrous (sometimes papillose), branches filiform. Cypselae columnar to prismatic or fusiform, 5-ribbed, gland-dotted and/or scabrellous; pappi (sometimes ± vestigial on 1-2 cypselae of each head) persistent, of 5, (distinct or connate) muticous scales plus 0-5[-30+] subulate-aristate to setiform scales or bristles. x = 11, 12, 17.