Cotula L.
Family: Asteraceae
Cotula image
Forest and Kim Starr - Plants of Hawaii  

Annuals or perennials, 2-25[-50+] cm (sometimes aromatic). Stems usually 1, erect or prostrate to decumbent or ascending (sometimes rooting at nodes), usually branched, glabrous or ± strigillose to villous (hairs mostly basifixed). Leaves usually mostly cauline [basal]; alternate [opposite]; petiolate or sessile; blades obovate or spatulate to lanceolate or linear, sometimes 1-3-pinnately [palmati-pinnately] lobed, ultimate margins entire or irregularly toothed, faces glabrous or ± strigillose to villous [lanate] (hairs mostly basifixed). Heads disciform [discoid or radiate], borne singly (peduncles sometimes dilated). Involucres broadly hemispheric to saucer-shaped, 3-12+[-15+] mm diam. Phyllaries persistent, 13-30+ in 2-3+ series, margins and apices (colorless, light to dark brown, or purplish) scarious. Receptacles flat to convex [conic], epaleate (sometimes ± covered with persistent stalks of florets). Ray florets 0 [5-8+, pistillate, fertile; corollas white] (peripheral pistillate florets 8-80+ in 1-3+ series; corollas usually none). Disc florets 12-200+[-600+], bisexual, fertile [functionally staminate]; corollas ochroleucous or yellow, tubes ± cylindric (bases sometimes adaxially saccate), throats abruptly ampliate, lobes (3-)4, ± deltate (sometimes one larger than others, usually each with central resin canal). Cypselae obovoid to oblong, ob-compressed or -flattened, ribs 2, lateral, sometimes becoming wings, faces ± papillate (pericarps relatively thin, sometimes with myxogenic cells and/or 2 lateral resin sacs); pappi 0. x = 10.

Some species of Cotula are widely naturalized. F. Hrusa et al. (2002) reported Cotula mexicana (de Candolle) Cabrera as established on golf courses in California; it is similar to C. australis and differs in leaf blades mostly 1-pinnate, receptacles pilose, and disc florets functionally staminate.

Heads disciform, the outer 1-several series of fls pistillate, with short tubular cor, or rarely all the fls perfect; invol bracts slightly unequal, ca 2-seriate, membranous or subherbaceous, commonly with narrow scarious margins; receptacle naked, flat to conic; disk-fls usually fertile, with 4-toothed yellow cor; style-branches flattened, truncate, penicillate; achenes, especially of the outer fls, ±stipitate, compressed parallel to the invol bracts, commonly minutely striate, otherwise 2-4-nerved or nerveless; pappus a short crown or none; annual or occasionally perennial herbs with alternate, entire to more often pinnatifid or pinnately dissected lvs and small or medium-sized heads. 50, mainly S. Hemisphere.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Image of Cotula australis
Map not
Available
Images
not available
Map not
Available
Image of Cotula coronopifolia
Map not
Available
Images
not available
Map not
Available
Images
not available
Map not
Available
Images
not available
Map not
Available
Images
not available
Map not
Available
Images
not available
Map not
Available
Images
not available
Map not
Available
Images
not available
Map not
Available
Images
not available
Map not
Available
Images
not available
Map not
Available