Achyrachaena Schauer

Last Addition: December 5, 1999.  Each "thumbnail" image below is linked to a larger photograph.

A monotypic genus of diminutive annual plants, common below 900 m elevation, ranging from Oregon through the California Floristic Province to Baja, Mexico.  Plants 2.5-40 cm tall.  Heads radiate, phyllaries 3-8, each tightly enveloping a ray ovary; receptacular chaff in one involucral-like series; ray florets pistillate, corollas yellow to red, slightly exceeding phyllaries; disk florets perfect, 6-35, corollas yellow to red; ray cypselae more or less cylindric; disk cypselae 4.5-8.5 mm long, 10-ribbed; ray pappus absent; disk pappus of 10 oblong, blunt scales in 2 series 3-6 mm and 6-11 mm long.  The chromosome number is n = 8.

ach_mol_habs.jpg (13820 bytes) ach_mol_cus.jpg (9711 bytes) ach_mol_frs.jpg (9564 bytes)
A. mollis, blow-wives. 1 - Habit, 2 - Flowering head, 3 - Fruit.

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