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 daisy family. 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 is a genus of annual, biennial or perennial, herbaceous plants that is assigned to the Daisy family, and can be found in Macaronesia, around the Mediterranean, and in the Middle East. All species are spiny, thistle-like in appearance, with flowerheads that consist of yellow ligulate florets, and canals that contain latex. It is known as سكوليمس (skwlyms) in Arab, scolyme in French, and is sometimes called golden thistle or oyster thistle in English.
Catananche caerulea, 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.
Cirsium eriophorum, the woolly thistle, is a herbaceous biennial species of flowering plant in the genus Cirsium of the daisy family Asteraceae. It is widespread across much of Europe. It is a large biennial plant with sharp spines on the tips of the leaves, and long, woolly hairs on much of the foliage. The flower heads are large and nearly spherical, with spines on the outside and many purple disc florets but no ray florets.
Didelta is a genus of shrubs of up to 1 or 2 meter high, with two known species in the daisy family. Like in almost all Asteraceae, the individual flowers are 5-merous, small and clustered in typical heads, and are surrounded by an involucre, consisting of in this case two whorls of bracts, which are almost free from each other. The 3–5 outer bracts are protruding and triangular in shape, the inner about twice as many are lance-shaped and ascending. In Didelta, the centre of the head is taken by 3–5 clusters of bisexual yolk yellow disc florets, sometimes divided from each other by male disc florets, and is surrounded by one complete whorl of infertile yolk yellow ray florets. The common base of the flowerhead swells around the developing fruitlets, become woody and breaks into segments when ripe. The fruitlets germinate within this woody encasing. The species of the genus Didelta can be found in Namibia and South Africa. The genus is called salad thistle in English and slaaibos in Afrikaans.
Gymnarrhena is a deviant genus of plants in the daisy family, with only one known species, Gymnarrhena micrantha. It is native to North Africa and the Middle East, as far east as Balochistan. Together with the very different Cavea tanguensis it constitutes the tribe Gymnarrheneae, and in the subfamily Gymnarrhenoideae.
Hymenonema is a genus of flowering plants in the dandelion family endemic to Greece. On each of the single or few stems, the species have one to three flowerheads consisting of yellow or yolk yellow ligulate florets, scaly pappus, greyish, pinnately segmented leaves in a basal rosette, and few smaller leaves on the 20–70 cm high stems. It contains two species: Hymenonema graecum, that is known from the Cyclades, and Hymenonema laconicum, which occurs in the central and south-eastern Peloponnesos.
Warionia is a genus in the dandelion tribe within the daisy family. 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.
The Stifftioideae are a subfamily of the Asteraceae, or sunflower family, of flowering plants. It comprises a single tribe, Stifftieae, of ten genera.
Hymenonema laconicum is a species of herbaceous perennial plant plant in the Asteraceae family. It is small to average height, with a rosette of greyish pinnately segmented leaves, and little branching solid stems carrying one to three heads of orange or yolk yellow ray-flowers, with a purple anther tube, and scaly pappus. The species is an endemic of the central and south-eastern Peloponnesos, and flowers in May and June.
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, assigned to the daisy family, 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.
Famatinanthus is a genus in the family Asteraceae that was described in 2014 and has been assigned to its own tribe Famatinantheae and subfamily Famatinanthoideae. It contains only one known species, F. decussatus, a small shrub of ½—1¾ m high that is an endemic of the Andes of north-western Argentina, with small, entire, oppositely set leaves and flowerheads containing about ten cream-colored, ray and disk florets, with backward coiled lobes. It is locally known as sacansa. For more than 100 years, the species was known to science only from the type collection. It was described in 1885 and originally assigned to the genus Aphyllocladus.
Felicia echinata, commonly known as the dune daisy or prickly felicia, is a species of shrub native to South Africa belonging to the daisy family. It grows to 1 m (3.3 ft) high and bears blue-purple flower heads with yellow central discs. In the wild, it flowers April to October.
Oedera capensis is a prickly shrublet belonging to the daisy family. It has stems that branch only at the foot and are densely set over their entire length with narrowly triangular leathery leaves with a sharp tip at approximately right angles to the stem. At their tip are what at first sight appears to be a single flowerhead with yellow ray florets and yellow disc florets. In fact, these are mostly nine densely cropped heads, as is suggested by the nine domes of the "disc" of the composite head, the untidy arrangement of the ray florets, and becomes very clear when cutting through the composite head. It is an endemic of the south of the Western Cape province in South Africa.
Felicia josephinae is a roughly hairy annual herbaceous plant of 15–20 cm (6–8 in) high, that is assigned to the daisy family. It branches near its base, and has few leaves along its stems. The lower leaves are set oppositely, inverted lance-shaped, relatively large at 3–7 cm long and ⅔–1¼ cm wide, and soon withering, while the higher ones are smaller and relatively narrower. In the axils of the leaves grow flower heads of 7–8 mm wide on stalks of up to 5 cm (2 in) long, topped with an involucre of about 5 mm (0.2 in) high and 4 mm (0.16 in) wide, consisting of eleven to thirteen bracts in two rows with bristles near the tip, eight to nine white or cream-coloured ligulate florets surrounding fourteen or fifteen deep purple disc florets. Flowers can be found in September and October. The species is an endemic species that can only be found in a small area along the west coast of the Western Cape province of South Africa.
Mairia crenata is a perennial herbaceous plant of mostly 2–15 cm (1–6 in) high that is assigned to the daisy family. It has a woody rootstock of up to 5 cm (2 in) long, from which brown, fleshy roots develop. The five to eighteen, hard and leathery, spoon-shaped leaves are in one to three rosettes, have a distinct main vein, blunt or pointy tip, often dark red or blackish margins with rounded teeth and a ½–2 cm (0.2–0.8 in) long stalk-like foot, often initially somewhat woolly hairy, on particularly the lower surface and the main vein, but this is easily rubbed off the shiny surfaces. Each rosette produces mostly one, sometimes up to four, mostly rusty or whitish woolly hairy, brown or dark red inflorescence stalks, usually 1½–15 cm long, each with two to eight, initially woolly, line-shaped to oval bracts, the lowest up to 3 cm (1.2 in), decreasing size further up, and carrying mostly one, rarely up to three flower heads. The flower heads have a bell-shaped involucre with about 40 bracts, sixteen to thirty three violet to white ray florets of about 1¼–1⅞ cm long, and many yellow disc florets. The species flowers anywhere between February and December but only after a fire has destroyed the overhead biomass or serious disturbance. It is an endemic species that is restricted to the Eastern Cape and Western Cape provinces of South Africa.
Felicia heterophylla is a roughly hairy annual plant in the daisy family. It has alternate leaves of 1–5 cm long with an entire margin or few inconspicuous teeth. The flower heads are set individually at the tip of its stems, and contain a whorl of purplish blue ray florets around a center of blackish blue disk florets. Flower heads appear in winter and spring. It is called true-blue daisy in English and bloublomastertjie in Afrikaans. It is an endemic species that only occurs in the Western Cape province of South Africa.
Felicia macrorrhiza is a small, evergreen shrub in the daisy family. This species grows in the Karoo region of South Africa. It is called Aspoestertjie in Afrikaans.
Felicia is a genus of small shrubs, perennial or annual herbaceous plants, with 85 known species, that is assigned to the daisy family. Like in almost all Asteraceae, the individual flowers are 5-merous, small and clustered in typical heads, and which are surrounded by an involucre of, in this case between two and four whorls of, bracts. In Felicia, the centre of the head is taken by yellow, seldomly whitish or blackish blue disc florets, and is almost always surrounded by one single whorl of mostly purple, sometimes blue, pink, white or yellow ligulate florets and rarely ligulate florets are absent. These florets sit on a common base and are not individually subtended by a bract. Most species occur in the Cape Floristic Region, which is most probably the area where the genus originates and had most of its development. Some species can be found in the eastern half of Africa up to Sudan and the south-western Arabian peninsula, while on the west coast species can be found from the Cape to Angola and one species having outposts on the Cameroon-Nigeria border and central Nigeria. Some species of Felicia are cultivated as ornamentals and several hybrids have been developed for that purpose.
