Citation: Elliot, Sketch Bot. S. Carolina 2:323 (1823).

Derivation: Greek pteron, wing; kaulos, stem; referring to the winged stems.

Synonymy: Monenteles Labill., Sert. Austr. Caled. 42 (1825).

Common name: (A. L. Cabrera & A.M. Ragonese (1978) Darwiniana 21:185-257.) Fruit-salad plants, pineapple fruits.

Description:
Perennial herbs and undershrubs, aromatic, with glandular and non-glandular hairs; stems leafy, branching, with continuous herbaceous wings, becoming woody below; leaves cauline, alternate, flat, decurrent, toothed.

Capitula small, sessile in dense terminal clusters without a conspicuous common involucre, heterogamous, discoid; capitular involucres narrowly ovoid, multisetlate; outer bracts short, oblanceolate, herbaceous, woolly; inner bracts much longer, lanceolate, scarious, erect, ultimately caducous; receptacle flat, naked; outer florets female, numerous, fertile; corollas filiform, 2- or 3-toothed; style branches filiform, truncate, glabrous; inner floret bisexual, normally solitary, sterile, 5-merous; anthers tailed at the base, with lanceolate terminal appendages; style branches short, papillose, hardly diverging.

Achenes more or less terete, pubescent; pappus uniseriate, of barbellate bristles, connate at the base.

Distribution:  18 species in North and South America, south-eastern Asia, New Guinea, New Caledonia and Australia; 6 species, comprising the section Monenteles, in Australia.

Biology: No text

Key to Species:

1. Leaves lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate; inflorescences elongated, 2-3.5 cm long at maturity	P. serrulatum 1.
1. Leaves oblanceolate to oblong; inflorescences globose, 1-2 cm long at maturity	P. sphacelatum 2.

Author: Not yet available