Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 927 (1753).

Derivation: Greek sphaira, sphere; anthos, flower; referring to the globose clusters of capitula.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: None

Description:
Aromatic herbs with glandular and non-glandular hairs; stems leafy, divaricately branched, with continuous herbaceous wings; leaves cauline, alternate, flat, decurrent, toothed.

Capitula small, sessile in dense globose terminal clusters without a common involucre, heterogamous, discoid; capitular involucres narrowly ovoid, multiseriate; bracts imbricate, scarious to cartilaginous; receptacle flat, naked; outer florets female, multiseriate, fertile; corollas narrowly cylindrical, shortly 3-toothed, the lower part becoming swollen and corky; style branches linear, subacute, glabrous; inner florets fewer, bisexual, usually sterile, 5-merous; corolla tubular, the lower half becoming swollen and corky; anthers sagittate at the base, with ovate terminal appendages; style branches short, pubescent, hardly diverging.

Achenes subterete, fusiform, pubescent; pappus absent.

Distribution:  (S. Ross-Craig (1955) Hook. Ic. 36:1-90.) 38 species in the Old World tropics, 2 of them extending to Australia.

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available