Scorzonera

Annual to perennial taprooted herbs, glabrous or with minute simple hairs; stems erect, simple or branched. Leaves basal and cauline, alternate, entire to pinnatisect. Capitula terminal, solitary or few in loose corymbs; involucre cylindric, bracts 3- or 4-seriate, lanceolate, unequal (outer ones smallest), herbaceous often with scarious margins, enlarged and reflexed in fruit; receptacle convex, naked, pitted. Florets ligulate, bisexual, yellow (in Victoria), violet or purple; ligule linear, 5-toothed; anthers sagittate at base, with obtuse apical appendages; style bilobed, with linear, terete, pubescent branches. Cypselas ellipsoid-fusiform to terete, ribbed, often muricate or scabrous, on a thickened hollow base, not beaked; pappus of many series of free plumose bristles, often barbellate apically, persistent.