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Support the Flora of the Southeastern US

2024 has been a banner year for making the best flora we can imagine. We've created:
With financial support from people like you, we are aiming even higher in 2025. Together we can accomplish all this: Vote on our 2025 priorities
  • Add Global Conservation Ranks (GRanks) vote
  • Professional graphic keys (polyclaves) to individual families/genera vote
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  • iNaturalist integration in FloraQuest vote
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We've set a goal of recruiting 200 ongoing supporters to donate $15 or more each month in 2025. Please help us reach this goal and make next year's flora even better:

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Key to Chrysopsis

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1 Stem, leaves, and phyllaries sparsely to densely pubescent with spreading non-glandular hairs as well has having minutely glandular pubescence; annuals with taproots
1 Stems, leaves, and phyllaries various but lacking spreading non-glandular hairs; biennials or perennials, either fibrous-rooted or with a mostly short and quickly disintegrating taproot.
  2 Cypselas lacking translucent, yellow to reddish brown, longitudinal ridges; phyllaries moderately to densely glandular.
    3 Upper leaf surfaces arachnoid; [widespread in our area, including in the Piedmont, Mountains, and Interior Low Plateau]
    3 Upper leaf surfaces variously pubescent, but not arachnoid; [of the Coastal Plain only, and mainly FL (also AL, NC, and SC)].
      4 Phyllary tips acuminate, attenuate, or subulate, spreading to reflexed; [of FL Panhandle and s. AL].
        5 Stems decumbent; heads 5-15 (-25) in corymbiform arrays; [of coastal dunes]
        5 Stems erect; heads (18-) 30-80 in paniculiform arrays; [of inland habitats]
      4 Phyllary tips acuminate, acute, or obtuse, appressed; [of peninsular FL, eastern Panhandle FL, and rarely (possibly only as an introduction) in NC and SC].
          6 Stem leaves sparely hirsute and stipitate-glandular; involucres green in bud.
             7 Stems ascending to erect, often branched at or near the base; heads nodding in development; mid-stem leaves moderately hirsute, and also densely stipitate-glandular, the longer stipitate-glandular hairs 0.4-0.9 mm long
             7 Stems erect, usually unbranched below the inflorescence; heads erect in development; mid-stem leaves glabrate to sparsely strigillose, and also densely stipitate-glandular, the longer stipitate-glandular hairs < 0.3 mm long
          6 Stem leaves woolly or tomentose; involucres yellowish-green in bud.
               8 Mid-stem leaves obovate or oblanceolate (widest above the midpoint), their bases cuneate or slightly clasping; longest marginal cilia of the leaves rarely > 1 mm long; leaf blades appressed-tomentose, sparsely stipitate-glandular (these largely hidden by the non-glandular hairs)
               8 Mid-stem leaves oblong, elliptic, ovate or lanceolate (widest at or below the midpoint), their bases truncate to rounded; longest marginal cilia of the leaves 2-3 mm long; leaf blades glabrate to sparsely woolly-pilose, densely and apparently stipitate-glandular
  2 Cypselas with 2-10 translucent, yellow to reddish brown, longitudinal ridges; phyllaries glabrous to densely pilose, and sometimes also stipitate-glandular.
                 9 Phyllary tips spreading to reflexed, twisted, usually long-attenuate, eglandular; cypselas with 6-10-ridges; [of n. FL southwards]
                 9 Phyllary tips appressed, acute to acuminate, either glandular or eglandular; cypselas with 2-6 ridges; [collectively more widespread].
                     11 Mid and upper stem leaves distinctly pilose-ciliate along the margins.
                       12 Stem leaf surfaces moderately to densely woolly; heads few in lax corymbiform arrays; stems decumbent to erect; [of VA to c. peninsular FL, west to FL Panhandle]
                       12 Stem leaf surfaces glabrate to pilose; heads many in simple to sometimes compound umbelliform arrays; stems usually erect; [of peninsular FL west to w. LA (mainly East Gulf Coastal Plain of FL Panhandle, s. AL, s. MS, and LA]
                     11 Mid and upper stem leaves not pilose-ciliate along the margins
                            14 Heads 20-100, in compact subumbelliform to paniculiform arrays; stems often dark purple; plants 3-20 dm tall; stem leaves linear to narrowly linear (often > 10× as long as wide), flat to slightly twisted, the margins usually flat (to slightly undulate); [of FL Panhandle and s. AL]
                            14 Heads 4-30 (-50), in open corymbiform arrays; stems green-purple; plants 3-8 dm tall; stem leaves linear to linear-lanceolate or elliptic (< 10× as long as wide), strongly twisted, the margins also often undulate; [of the FL peninsula]
                              15 Stem leaves glabrous and eciliate (but rosette leaves densely woolly), lower stem leaves absent at flowering; outer phyllaries with a few stipitate glands basally, the involucre otherwise glabrous
                              15 Stem leaves eciliate or ciliate, the surfaces glabrate to sparsely woolly, the hairs often only or mostly near the margin, lower stem leaves usually present at flowering; phyllaries glabrous, glandular-punctate