| Agoseris | |
|---|---|
| Agoseris glauca | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Asterids |
| Order: | Asterales |
| Family: | Asteraceae |
| Subfamily: | Cichorioideae |
| Tribe: | Cichorieae |
| Genus: | Agoseris Raf. |
| Species | |
|
See text |
|
| Synonyms | |
|
Ammogeton Schrader |
|
Agoseris is a small genus of liguliferous herbs in the Asteraceae or sunflower family. In general appearance they are reminiscent of dandelions and are sometimes called mountain dandelion or false dandelion. Like dandelions the plants are (mostly) stemless, the leaves being all basal and forming a rosette, contain milky sap, produce several unbranched, stem-like flower stalks (peduncles), each flower stalk bearing a single, erect flower head that contains several yellow florets, the flower head maturing into a ball-like seed head of beaked achenes, each achene with a pappus of numerous, white bristles.
Contents |
Agoseris is one of several groups of flowering plants that have a New World amphitropical distribution (occurring in temperate regions of both North and South America). Most species are found in cordilleran regions of western North America, being distributed from the Yukon Territory and Alaska southward to Baja California, Arizona, and New Mexico, and from the Pacific coast eastward to the northern Great Plains. Disjunct, isolated populations occur on the Gaspe Peninsula and Otish Mountains of Quebec, near the Hudson Bay in Ontario, and on hills near the Arctic Ocean in the Northwest Territories. One species is native to the southern Andes Mountains of Argentina and Chile, southward to Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, and the Falkland Islands.