Gymnarrhena micrantha
| Gymnarrhena | |
|---|---|
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Asterids |
| Order: | Asterales |
| Family: | Asteraceae |
| Subfamily: | Gymnarrhenoideae |
| Tribe: | Gymnarrheneae |
| Genus: |
Gymnarrhena Desf. |
| Species: | G. micrantha |
| Binomial name | |
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Gymnarrhena micrantha Desf. |
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| Synonyms | |
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Gymnarrhena is a deviant genus of plants in the daisy family, with only one known species, Gymnarrhena micrantha. It is native to North Africa and the Middle East, as far east as Balochistan. Together with the very different Cavea tanguensis it constitutes the tribe Gymnarrheneae, and in the subfamily Gymnarrhenoideae.
Gymnarrhena is a small, flowering, winter annual with a rosette of simple, narrow leaves and flower heads cropped at its hart. It does not contain latex and does not carry spines. Gymnarrhena flowers in March and April. One of the common names in Arab is كَف الكَلْب meaning "dog's footprint", while in Hebrew it is called מוצנית קטנת-פרחים meaning "small mud flower".
Gymnarrhena micrantha is a dwarf annual herb of ½–2½ cm high, with all its leaves in rosette of up to 10 cm in diameter, and its flowers tucked away in the hart of this rosette, that is lacking latex, and does not have thorns. Two sources report twenty chromosomes (2n=20), but one other publication says eighteen (2n=18).
The leaves are simple and are arranged in a dense basal rosette. They are narrowly lanceolate to narrowly ovate in shape, more or less V-shaped in cross-section, lack leaf stalks and have a smooth surface. The tip is pointy or gradually narrowing. The leaf margins may carry some small, distanced teeth.
The flower heads that develop underneath the leaves do not open and are self-pollinated. Each floret is fully enclosed in its involucral bracts, and the corolla shows very little development. The cypselas are relatively large and flattened, blackish in color, with ample hairs, and remain below the soil surface after the plant has died. Any pappus consists of somewhat scale-like bristles, hardly developed or is entirely absent.
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Wikipedia