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land3499

Senecio deflersii, and more botany :)

land3499
13 years ago

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This is a pretty odd plant, from South Yemen, but common in cultivation. It's an easy grower, and flowers (for me, at least) in late November and through December.

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It's a member of the Compositae (aka Asteraceae), which is one of the largest plant families, with some 20,000 individual species. What unites the Compositae is their unique flower structure. Think of a daisy...it looks like a typical flower, with petals surrounding the center of the flower. But in fact, in the center, there's an involucre ("cup," just like Euphorbias!) that holds many tiny individual flowers, called "florets." The florets in the center ("disc florets") often have very reduced petals, and are barely recognizable as individual flowers, whereas those around the edge ("ray florets") have a single, greatly enlarged petal.

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S. deflersii is a little unusual in this respect, in that there are no ray florets, and the petals of the disc florets aren't reduced so much that you can't recognize them as individual flowers.

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If you like my posts, check out Succulent of the Week on cactiguide.com.

Thx,

-R

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