Beautiful photographs depicting all plant parts and excellent observation
On Tuesday, February 6, 2018 at 8:07:52 PM UTC+5:30, ashwini wrote: > > This is another difficult genera I am trying to understand. The plants I > studied have spiny leaves, red-tipped glandular hair on stems and > phyllaries, 2-2.5cm flower-heads and wrinkled, ridged 4mm-long achenes. > While the spikes on leaves point to *S. asper*, the downward-pointing > auricles point to *S. oleraceous*. > > *I counted the involucral bracts on two heads and found them to be 34 and > 21*, both less than 35. *S. asper* is supposed to have 35 to 45 > involucral bracts while *S. oleraceous* only up to 35. Another point in > favour of *oleraceous*. > > *The ripe achene on oleraceous is supposed to be 4mm long with > longitudinal ridges with protuberances which matches our plants*. The > hair on its head are white and unbranched about twice as long as the > achene. My close-ups show the hair themselves are not smooth but I could > not find any reference to that. > > Based on the two above characters and the flower size, I am inclined to > believe that our plants are *S. oleraceous* and not *S. asper* but I > haven't seen the achenes of *S. asper* to compare. The achenes of *S. > wightianus* on our site > <https://08511630493324166816.googlegroups.com/attach/18c31fe2bf5bb42e/8804.jpg?part=0.3&view=1&vt=ANaJVrEMPbs-8w-0jJn1Nfrla9_eT9uKH-Jbe2UccRRYl7XzZPXC_akLSMXNA1jiV-B75GDMs5EtUZs3KXTCjEqYlqJdLh6oXq4YcINC9uPXSnN3YluNMTQ> > > look very similar to the ones I photographed, so I am confused. > > Please advise. > > *Sonchus oleraceous*? > Above Mcleodganj, Dharamshala, HP > 1800m approx. > 3-5 February, 2018 > > Habit: 95cm tall, well-branched > Flowers: Several, 2-2.5cm across, on pedicels 1.5-8cm long, involucral > bracts less than 35 (based on two measurements which were 21 and 34) > Fruit: Achenes 4mm long, translucent when unripe, brown when ready, ridged > and rugose, tipped with white unbranched hair twice long. > Leaves: Lobed, spiked, amplexicaul with two auricles pointing downwards, > not rounded. > > > Thanks. > Ashwini > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "efloraofindia" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/indiantreepix. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
