Description: Annual or perennial herbs with well developed rootstock. Indumentum of crisped, multicellular eglandular hairs with also sessile to shortly stalked resin globules.
Leaves alternate, sessile; margins denticulate, dentate or lyrate.
Flower heads axillary or leaf-opposed, solitary or in pairs, on often short peduncles. Involucral bracts sub-equal in length in 3–4 rows. Receptacle flat, glabrous, without scales. Marginal florets fertile, female, without rays. Disc florets bisexual and forming achenes, but in some species infertile.; anters tailed, style bulbous.
Achenes cylindrical, longitudinally ribbed; carpopodium prominent and white; pappus of a stiff ring sometimes with short slender persisent bristles.
Distribution and occurrence: 6 species occuring in Australia, Indian subcontinent, Indochina, eastern Asia, Malesia, Papuasia, NW and SW Pacific.
Text by Louisa Murray
Taxon concept: Bean, A.R. (2013) Sphaeromoorphaea and Ethuliopsis. Austrobaileya 9(1): 30-59.
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Leaves grey-green; achenes with numerous twin hairs at the base and with conspiculous corona; corolla of female florets conical or filiform | Sphaeromorphaea littoralis |
| Leaves bright green; achenes lacking twin hairs at base (or just a few present) and with a very narrow corona; corolla of florets bottle-shaped | Sphaeromorphaea australis |
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