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115. Chamaemelum Miller, Gard. Dict. Abr. ed. 4. vol. 1. 1754.

[Greek chamae-, on the ground, lowly, creeping, and melon, orchard, alluding to common habitat]

Linda E. Watson

Annuals or perennials, 5–20(–35+) cm, (aromatic). Stems usually 1, erect, ascending, or prostrate, usually branched, glabrous or glabrate, puberulent, or villous to strigoso-sericeous (hairs basifixed). Leaves mostly cauline (at flowering); alternate; petiolate or sessile; blades oblong, ovate, elliptic, or spatulate, 1–3-pinnately lobed (ultimate lobes narrowly spatulate to linear or filiform, apices apiculate), ultimate margins entire, faces glabrous or glabrate, puberulent, or villous to strigoso-sericeous. Heads radiate or discoid, borne singly or in lax corymbiform arrays. Involucres hemispheric or broader, 6–10 mm diam. Phyllaries persistent, 22–45+ in 3–4+ series (sometimes reflexed in fruit), mostly ovate to oblong, unequal, margins and apices (colorless, brownish, or greenish) scarious. Receptacles hemispheric to conic, paleate; paleae weakly navicular to ± flat (medially chartaceous, margins scarious, apices rounded). Ray florets 0 or 12–21+, pistillate and fertile or styliferous and sterile; corollas white, laminae oblong (often marcescent, reflexed in fruit). Disc florets 100–200+, bisexual, fertile; corollas yellow, tubes ± cylindric (somewhat dilated, bases saccate, weakly clasping apices of cypselae), throats funnelform, lobes 5, deltate. Cypselae ± obovoid, weakly obcompressed, ribs or nerves (weak): 2 lateral, 1 adaxial, faces finely striate, glabrous (pericarps with myxogenic cells in longitudinal rows, without resin sacs); pappi 0. x = 9.

Species 2 (2 in the flora): introduced; s, w Europe, n Africa.

1 Annuals; stems erect or ascending, glabrous or puberulent; margins and apices of phyllaries brownish   1 Chamaemelum fuscatum
+ Perennials; stems mostly prostrate (much branched, often forming mats), ± strigoso-sericeous to villous; margins and apices of phyllaries greenish or lacking pigment   2 Chamaemelum nobile

Lower Taxa

