Catamixis

Catamixis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Asterids
Order:	Asterales
Family:	Asteraceae
Subfamily:	Pertyoideae
Genus:	Catamixis T. Thomson
Binomial name
Catamixis baccharoides T. Thomson

Catamixis is a genus assigned to the daisy family, with only one known species, Catamixis baccharoides, a low to medium height (¾—1¾ m) shrub. It is native to a very small area of western Nepal and northern India in the Himalayas. It has approximately spoon-shaped, leathery leaves with distanced rounded teeth alternately set along straight, shyly branching stems, and carries many flower heads of about 1 cm, with a few creamy white florets, sometimes with a hint of violet, in corymbs at the end of the branches. Flowers and fruits can be found between March and May. Its vernacular name in Hindi is विषपत्री (vishpatri) or विश्पत्र (vishpatra).

Catamixis baccharoides is a shrub of ¾—1¾ m high, with straight, shyly branching stems, which are circular in cross-section, initially covered in silky hairs pressed to the surface, but later becoming hairless, carrying alternately set leaves close together, which leave distinct marks after being shed. The leaves are leathery and hairless, 3½—8 cm long and 1½—3½ cm wide, spoon-shaped, the base tapering into the stalk, while the margin is somewhat wavy, with distanced rounded teeth particularly in the upper half. The flower heads are set in corymbs at the end of the branches or in the leaf axils. Each flower head consists of an involucre, 5—6 mm high, with several whorls of lanceolate bracts narrowing into the tip, with papery edges, and contains mostly five, sometimes four or six, hermaphrodite creamy white ligulate florets of 3¾ cm, ending in five shallow, but irregular lobes. Each of the five individual anthers per floret has two spurs at its base, giving them an arrow-shaped foot. Like in all Asteraceae, the pinkish anthers are fused into a tube through which the style grows, while picking up the pollen that is released at the inside of the tube. The shaft of the style only has few hairs at its base. When ripe, the style opens into two branches of about ½ mm with short stigmatic papillae at the dorsal side. There are no bracts on the common base of the florets. The indehiscent one-seeded fruits (called cypselas) are 2 mm long, covered in velvety hairs, and are adorned by ten longitudinal ribs. The sepals which are changed to barbed 8 mm long hairs called pappus are white in color. The pollen is tricolpate and has some small spines of less than 1 μm.

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Wikipedia