Chondrilla (plant)

Chondrilla
Chondrilla juncea
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Asterids
Order: Asterales
Family: Asteraceae
Subfamily: Cichorioideae
Tribe: Cichorieae
Genus: Chondrilla
L.
Synonyms[1]
  • Zollikoferia Nees
  • Aspideium Zollik. ex DC.
Chondrilla chondrilloides

Chondrilla is a genus of flowering plants in the aster family, Asteraceae.[2][3] They are native to Eurasia, and certain taxa are known as introduced species outside their native range.[4] The best known of these is rush skeletonweed (Chondrilla juncea), a noxious weed established in Africa, Australia, and the Americas.[5]

Chondrilla species produce one or more stems up to 1.5 meters tall from a taproot which can be very deep and highly branched. The basal and lower stem leaves are divided and toothed, and are borne on winged petioles. The upper leaf blades are smaller and simple. The cylindrical flower heads are often solitary but may grow in clusters, and are located along the branches and at the ends. They contain several yellow florets that soon wither. The fruit is a cylindrical, beaked, ribbed cypsela with a pappus of many white bristles.[4]

This genus is closely related to the dandelions of genus Taraxacum. Plants of both genera undergo apomixis, producing fertile seeds via asexual reproduction.[6]

Species[7]
  1. Chondrilla acantholepis
  2. Chondrilla ambigua
  3. Chondrilla aspera
  4. Chondrilla bosseana
  5. Chondrilla brevirostris
  6. Chondrilla canescens
  7. Chondrilla chondrilloides
  8. Chondrilla evae
  9. Chondrilla gibbirostris
  10. Chondrilla hispida
  11. Chondrilla juncea – rush skeletonweed, hogbite
  12. Chondrilla kusnezovii
  13. Chondrilla laticoronata
  14. Chondrilla lejosperma
  15. Chondrilla macra
  16. Chondrilla macrocarpa
  17. Chondrilla maracandica
  18. Chondrilla mariae
  19. Chondrilla mujunkumensis
  20. Chondrilla ornata
  21. Chondrilla pauciflora
  22. Chondrilla phaeocephala
  23. Chondrilla piptocoma
  24. Chondrilla ramosissima
  25. Chondrilla rouillieri
  26. Chondrilla setulosa
  27. Chondrilla spinosa
  28. Chondrilla tenuiramosa
  29. Chondrilla yossii

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chondrilla.
Wikispecies has information related to: Chondrilla
  1. ↑ Flann, C (ed) 2009+ Global Compositae Checklist
  2. ↑ Linnaeus, Carl von. 1753. Species Plantarum 2: 796-797 in Latin
  3. ↑ Tropicos, Chondrilla L.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chondrilla. Flora of North America.
  5. ↑ Chondrilla juncea. Flora of North America.
  6. ↑ Van Dijk, P. J. (2003). Ecological and evolutionary opportunities of apomixis: insights from Taraxacum and Chondrilla. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 358(1434), 1113-21.
  7. ↑ Chondrilla. The Plant List.