Perennial canescent or pubescent herbs, with alternate leaves and rather large, peduncled solitary or corymbose heads of both tubular and radiate yellow-flowers. Involucre depressed-hemispheric, its bracts imbricated in about 3 series, the outermost small, mostly oblong, the second series broader, oval or obovate, the inner membranous, similar, reticulated when mature, subtending the ray-flowers and exceeding the disk. Receptacle nearly flat, chaffy, the chaff subtending the disk-flowers. Ray-flowers 5-12, pistillate, fertile. Disk-flowers perfect, tubular, sterile, their corollas 5-toothed. Anthers entire, or minutely 2-toothed at the base. Style of the tubular flowers undivided, hirsute. Achenes obovate, compressed, not winged, 1-ribbed on the inner side, the pappus obsolete, early deciduous or of 2 caducous awns. [Named after J. L. Berlandier, a Swiss botanical collector in Texas and Mexico.]

About 8 species, natives of the southern United States and Mexico. Type species: Berlandiera lexana DC.

Stem leafy; leaves ovate to oblong, crenate.

1. B. texana.

Plant acaulescent, or nearly so; leaves lyrate-pinnatihd.

2. B. lyrata.

1. Berlandiera Texana Dc. Texan Berlandiera

Fig. 4429

Berlandiera texana DC. Prodr. 5: 517. 1836.

Hirsute-pubescent throughout; stem erect, branched above, or simple, 2°-3° high, leafy. Leaves ovate, or the basal oblong, crenate, acutish or obtuse at the apex, rounded or cordate at the base, 2'-4' long, 1'-2' wide, the upper sessile, the lower petioled; heads few or several, 1'-1 1/2 broad, in a terminal corym-bose-cymose cluster; peduncles 1/4'-1 1/2' long; inner bracts of the involucre twice as large as the outer.

In dry soil, Missouri and Kansas to Arkansas and Louisiana. July-Aug.

2. Berlandiera Lyrata Benth. Lyre-Leaved Berlandiera

Fig. 4430

Silphium Nuttallianum Torr. Ann. Lyc. N. Y. 2: 216. Name only. 1827.

Berlandiera lyrata Benth. Pl. Hartw. 17. 1839.

Finely whitish-canescent, acaulescent or short-stemmed; scapes or peduncles slender, 3'-8' long, bearing a solitary head, or rarely 2. Leaves lyrate-pinnatifid, obtuse, petioled, the terminal segment usually larger than the lateral ones, the lower ones very small, all obtuse, mostly crenate, sometimes becoming green and glabrate above; head about 1' broad; inner bracts of the involucre much broader than the outer, orbicular, or wider than long; achenes obovate, keeled on the inner face.

In dry soil, Kansas to Texas, Arizona and Mexico.