Bidens is a genus of flowering plants in the aster family, Asteraceae. The genus include roughly 230 species which are distributed worldwide. Despite their global distribution, the systematics and taxonomy of the genus has been described as complicated and unorganized. The common names beggarticks, black jack, burr marigolds, cobbler's pegs, Spanish needles, stickseeds, tickseeds and tickseed sunflowers refer to the fruits of the plants, most of which are bristly and barbed. The generic name refers to the same character; Bidens comes from the Latin bis ("two") and dens ("tooth").
Gundelia is a low to high (20–100 cm) thistle-like perennial herbaceous plant with latex, spiny compound inflorescences, reminiscent of teasles and eryngos, that contain cream, yellow, greenish, pink, purple or redish-purple disk florets. It is assigned to the family Asteraceae. Flowers can be found from February to May. The stems of this plant dry-out when the seeds are ripe and break free from the underground root, and are then blown away like a tumbleweed, thus spreading the seeds effectively over large areas with little standing vegetation. This plant is native to the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle-East. Opinions differ about the number of species in Gundelia. Sometimes the genus is regarded monotypic, Gundelia tournefortii being a species with a large variability, but other authors distinguish up to nine species, differing in floret color and pubescence. Young stems are cooked and eaten in the Middle-East and are said to taste like a combination of artichoke and asparagus. The plant also contains compounds that have been demonstrated to be effective against a range of ailments. A large quantity of pollen assigned to Gundelia has been found on the Shroud of Turin, which may suggest that the crown of thorns was made from Gundelia, but this finding has been contested.
Scolymus maculatus is a spiny annual plant in the family Asteraceae, native to the Mediterranean region in southern Europe, southwest Asia, and northern Africa, and also the Canary Islands. It has pinnately incised prickly leaves and prickly wings along the stems, both with a white marginal vein. The yellow flowerheads stand solitary or with a few together at the tip to the stems, and subtended by more than five leaflike bracts. The plant is known as scolyme taché in French, cardogna macchiata in Italian, cardo borriquero in Spanish, and escólimo-malhado in Portuguese, חוח עקוד in Hebrew and سنارية حولية in Arabic. In English it is called spotted golden thistle or spotted oyster thistle.
Catananche caerulea, or Cupid's dart, is a greyish green perennial herbaceous plant with a basal leaf rosette and conspicuous blue-purple or sometimes white flowerheads, belonging to the daisy family. It is a popular garden plant and is often used in dried flower arrangements.
Coreopsis auriculata, the lobed tickseed or mouse-ear tickseed, is a North American plant species of the family Asteraceae. It is native to the southeastern and east-central United States, from Louisiana east to the Florida Panhandle and as far north as Kentucky, Maryland, and West Virginia.
Coreopsis basalis, the golden-mane coreopsis, is a North American plant species in the sunflower family. It is native to the southeastern and south-central United States from Texas to the Carolinas. Isolated populations have been reported from Connecticut, Illinois, and California.
Felicia filifolia is a Southern African member of the family Asteraceae. It is a hardy, sprawling shrub growing to about 1 metre tall. Leaves are narrow and clustered along the twigs. When blooming it is densely covered in flowerheads with ray florets that are pink-mauve to white and disc florets that are yellow. In the wild, flowers can be found August to December.
Warionia is a genus in the tribe Cichorieae within the family Asteraceae. The only known species is Warionia saharae, an endemic of Algeria and Morocco, and it is locally known in the Berber language as afessas, abessas or tazart n-îfiss. It is an aromatic, thistle-like shrub of ½–2 m high, that contains a white latex, and has fleshy, pinnately divided, wavy leaves. It is not thorny or prickly. The aggregate flower heads contain yellow disk florets. It flowers from April till June. Because Warionia is deviant in many respects from any other Asteraceae, different scholars have placed it hesitantly in the Cardueae, Gundelieae, Mutisieae, but now genetic analysis positions it as the sister group to all other Cichorieae.
Coreopsis intermedia, the goldenwave tickseed, is a North American species of plants in the family Asteraceae. It is native to a small region in the south-central United States (eastern Texas, western Louisiana, southwestern Arkansas.
Scolymus grandiflorus is a spiny annual or biennial plant in the family Asteraceae, native to the Mediterranean region. With up to 75 cm high stems, it is the smallest of the species of Scolymus. Its stems are lined with uninterrupted spiny wings. It also has the largest flowerheads in the genus, of approximately 5 cm wide. It has yellow, sometimes yolk-yellow ligulate florets. Its vernacular name in Maltese is xewk isfar kbir, meaning "large yellow fin", cardogna maggiore in Italian, scoddi on Sicily, and scolyme à grandes fleurs in French.
Catananche lutea, is a woolly annual plant, in the family Asteraceae, with most leaves in a basal rosette, and some smaller leaves on the stems at the base of the branches. Seated horizontal flowerheads develop early on under the rosette leaves. Later, not or sparingly branching erect stems grow to 8–40 cm high, carrying solitary flowerheads at their tips with a papery involucre whitish to beige, reaching beyond the yellow ligulate florets. Flowers are present between April and June. This plant is unique for the five different types of seed it develops, few larger seeds from the basal flowerheads, which remain in the soil, and smaller seeds from the flowerheads above ground that may be spread by the wind or remain in the flowerhead when it breaks from the dead plant. This phenomenon is known as amphicarpy. The seeds germinate immediately, but in one type, germination is postponed. It naturally occurs around the Mediterranean. Sources in English sometimes refer to this species as yellow succory.
Euryops brownei is a woody herb or shrub of ½–3 m (1⅔–10 ft) high, with yellow flowerheads of both ray and disc florets, and small, narrow leaves, belonging to the daisy family. The species is native to the highlands of northern Tanzania and central Kenya.
Haplocarpha rueppellii is a very low to low perennial plant with a ground rosette of entire leaves and short-stemmed, yellow flowerheads, that contain both ray and disc florets, and is assigned to the daisy family. The species is an endemic of the highlands of Ethiopia and eastern Africa.
Felicia amoena is a variably hairy, sometimes glandular, biennial or perennial plant, of about 25 cm (10 in) high, that is assigned to the family Asteraceae. It is somewhat woody at its base, roots at the nodes if these contact the soil, and has ascending branches. The leaves are oppositely arranged along the stems at and just above a branching fork, further up the leaves alternate. The flower heads sit individually on up to 12 cm long stalks. They are 2–3 cm in diameter and consist of about twelve to twenty five heavenly blue ray florets that surround many yellow disc florets. Three subspecies have been recognised, that differ in width of the leaves and the involucral bracts, the size of the heads and number of ray florets and in having glandular hairs. These can be found in coastal sands and inland areas in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. Flower heads can be found from June till October.
Felicia nordenstamii is a flowering shrub in the family Asteraceae. It is found only in South Africa where it grows on limestone hills close to the sea on the southern coast. Felicia nordenstamii is a many-branched shrub growing up to 30 cm (1 ft) tall. The lower parts of the stems are covered in grayish brown bark and the upper stem has many crowded, upwardly angled, alternate leaves with long hairs on the lower surfaces. Large flower heads form at the tips of the branches, each about 41⁄2 cm across, with about thirty purplish blue ray florets surrounding many yellow disc florets.
Felicia bellidioides is a perennial plant of up to about 25 cm (10 in) high, that is assigned to the family Asteraceae. Most of the narrowly inverted egg-shaped leaves are silky hairy and in a basal rosette with no or few very narrow bracts on the stalk in the subspecies bellidioides. In the subspecies foliosa, the narrower leaves are not silky hairy but variously bristly and glandular, with more and larger bracts on the inflorescence stalk. The flowerheads sit individually on top of a long peduncle and consist of an involucre with only two worls of bracts, about twenty purplish blue ray florets, surrounding many yellow disc florets. It occurs in the Western Cape province of South Africa.
Felicia annectens is an annual plant of up to about 25 cm (10 in) high, that is assigned to the family Asteraceae. The lower leaves are opposite and the higher leaves alternate. The bloated involucre consists of very broad, hairless bracts. These protect up to ten, short, bluish ray florets that encircle yellow, partly sterile disc florets. The heads sit individually on top of up to 6 cm long stalks. The species was considered extinct after no observations were made after 1915, but was rediscovered in the 21st century. It occurs in the Western Cape province of South Africa.
Mairia petiolata is a tufted, variably hairy, perennial plant of up to 15 cm (6 in) assigned to the family Asteraceae. Its leaves are in a ground rosette, and have a stalk of mostly 2–5 cm long and an inverted egg-shaped to elliptic, 61⁄2–9 cm (2.6–4.6 in) long and 2–3 cm wide leaf blade, with a toothed margin. It mostly has two flower heads at the tip of the branches of each erect, dark reddish brown scape. The flower heads have a bell- to cup-shaped involucre that consists of 20–24, purplish, overlapping bracts in 3–4 whorls. These protect 12–16 pink, ray florets, surrounding many yellow disc florets. This species was only seen flowering once, in December. It is known from one location in the Langeberg, Western Cape province of South Africa.
Symphyotrichum schaffneri is a perennial, herbaceous species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae native to the states of Puebla and Veracruz, Mexico.
Hoffmannanthus is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the Asteraceae. There is only one known species, Hoffmannanthus abbotianus(O.Hoffm.) H.Rob., S.C.Keeley & Skvarla It's native range is Uganda and southern Tropical Africa. It is found in the countries of Angola, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zaïre.
