Smallanthus uvedalia (L.) Mack. (redirected from: Polymnia uvedalia var. floridana)
Family: Asteraceae
[Osteospermum uvedalia L.,  more...]
Smallanthus uvedalia image
Tracey Slotta  

Leaves: petioles 3-12+ cm, blades 10-35(-60+) × 10-35+ cm, larger usually 3-5-lobed. Ray laminae 12-30+ mm. Cypselae 5-6 mm. 2n = 32.

Flowering Jun-Aug(-Oct). Thickets, forest margins, often wet sites; 10-300+ m; Ala., Ark., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Kans., Ky., La., Md., Mich., Miss., Mo., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Okla., Pa., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va., W.Va.; introduced in Bermuda.

B. L. Turner (1988) included types of Smallanthus uvedalia and S. maculatus (Cavanilles) H. Robinson within a single species circumscription. If that circumscription is accepted, the range of S. uvedalia extends through eastern Mexico and Central America to Panama.

From Flora of Indiana (1940) by Charles C. Deam

Restricted to the southern part of the state where it is found on wooded slopes in places exposed to the sun, usually toward the base of a slope but not always so. It is infrequent and grows in colonies. In 1931 in Harrison County, I found it as a common weed in an orchard of Wm. W. Jacobs about a mile west of Glidas. The orchard was on the south side of a woods where the species was common and from which it had escaped into the orchard. The owner was making strenuous efforts to eradicate it.

Coarse perennial 1-3 m, the stem glandular or spreading- hairy beneath the heads, otherwise generally glabrous; lvs large, sometimes over 3 dm, deltoid-ovate, subpalmately lobed and veined, scabrous-hispid to subglabrous above, more finely hairy and often glandular beneath, with broadly winged, sometimes runcinate petiole; heads in moderately open, leafy cymes, the bright yellow disk ca 1.5 cm wide; invol bracts lance-ovate to ovate or elliptic, leafy, 1-2 cm, much broader and generally longer than the outer receptacular bracts; rays ca 8-11, bright yellow, 1-2(-3) cm, rarely reduced and inconspicuous; achenes ca 6 mm, impressed-striate (or shallowly ribbed and grooved), with many nerves; 2n=32. Woods and meadows; N.Y. to Ill. and Mo., s. to Fla. and Tex. July-Sept.(Smallanthus u.)

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

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