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1 Ray florets white, pink, or purple (rarely pale yellow or lavender). | |
2 Ray floret (the lamina) articulate from the achene and falling, thus the mature heads not appearing papery. | |
5 Rays white or whitish-yellow; the laminae typically < 5 mm long (occasionally longer in Polymnia); [collectively widespread] | |
7 Plants usually with a mix of simple and 3-lobed leaves; pappus plumose; plants perennial, usually at least somewhat procumbent | |
4 Heads with an involucre subtended by a calyculus of bracts (these often but not always reflexed); the phyllaries often appearing somewhat translucent or of a distinctly different color, shape, or texture from the leafy colored bracts below; [tribe Heliantheae; subtribe Coreopsidinae]. | |
8 Phyllaries connate for at least ¼ their length; heads with or without ray florets; [MS westwards in our area] | |
12 Leaves and phyllaries with large, scattered, embedded oil glands, making the plants strongly aromatic (the glands translucent in living plants, usually golden-brown or blackish in herbarium specimens); plants annual, decumbent and much branched from the base (except Tagetes, annual and generally erect and sparingly branched); [tribe Heliantheae; subtribe Pectidinae]. | |
13 Leaves pinnately lobed or pinnatisect (pinnately divided nearly to the midrib but the leaflets not separate), the margins of terminal segments usually serrate (sometimes entire). | |
16 Phyllaries distinct to their bases, or nearly so; ray florets 5-8; heads borne singly or in pairs/triplets; leaf surfaces puberulent | |
12 Leaves and phyllaries lacking embedded oil glands, though smaller punctate glands sometimes present; perennial or annual plants, upright and little or moderately branched below the inflorescence. | |
19 Pappus absent, of scales, or coroniform (if coroniform then with 6-8 barbellulate bristles as in Jamesianthus); leaf blades unlobed; collectively widespread, including c. TX] | |
20 Heads smaller and many (10-300+), arranged into dense, flat-topped corymbs; disc florets 1-15; ray florets 0-2, the laminae inconspicuous; phyllaries 6 (-9), in 1 series; [collectively more widespread but absent from n. AL and wc. GA] | |
20 Heads larger and fewer (< 9 per inflorescence), arranged singly or in loose corymbs; ray florets 6-14, the laminae conspicuous; phyllaries 12-18, broadly ovate, squarrose and in several imbricate series; [on calcareous substrates in n. AL and wc. GA] | |
22 Inner phyllaries prickly with straight or uncinate prickles, and each enveloping a cypsela and swelling into a bur-like structure | |
22 Inner phyllaries unarmed, not becoming bur-like (though those of Melampodium do invest the fruit). | |
23 Plants with tack-glands or pit-glands on stems, leaves, and/or phyllaries; [waif, e. TX; native further westward] | |
23 Plants without tack-glands or pit glands. | |
24 Outer phyllaries orbicular to lance-linear, not connate; [native, collectively widespread in our area]. | |
26 Plants perennial, often trailing; pappus persistent, forming a minute, half-cup-shaped crown; [e. LA eastward, e. of MS river] | |
25 Taller, robust plants, the stems usually 5-40 cm long at maturity, erect; pappus absent or of 2 awns. | |
32 Plants with tack-glands or pit-glands on stems, leaves, and/or phyllaries; [waif, VA and NC northward; subtribe Madiinae] | |
32 Plants without tack-glands or pit-glands on stems, leaves, and/or phyllaries; [natives and non-natives, collectively widespread] | |
33 Paleae not notably clasping the cypsela; cypselae notably flattened (or weakly compressed/angled in Guizotia); heads small, the receptacle 3-8 mm in diameter (ca. 10-15 mm in Guizotia). | |
36 Phyllaries apparently 4, the outer 4 foliaceous and forming a fused quadrangle which conceals the much smaller and narrower inner phyllaries (each inner phyllary subtending a ray floret); cypselae finely 32-40 ribbed | |
36 Phyllaries not as above, instead 5 or more and not forming a conspicuously fused quandrangle; cypselae angled or smooth (sometimes angled, but lacking many fine ribs) | |
46 Leaves linear, lanceolate, or ovate, almost always some leaves on a plant > 7 mm wide; plants from crowns, some species with thickened vertical storage roots (only H. tuberosus producing horizontal tubers); [collectively widespread in our area] | |
46 Leaves linear, 0.5-7 mm wide; plants from slender horizontal tubers; [c. FL north to s. AL] |