Description: Annual or perennial herbs.
Leaves alternate or rarely all basal, margins entire to usually toothed or lobed, usually sessile.
Inflorescence terminal, heads solitary or numerous in cymes or rarely panicles, commonly on naked or nearly naked peduncles. Heads campanulate to hemispherical; involucral bracts numerous, narrow, herbaceous, subequal to graduated, ± imbricate in 2–several series; receptacle naked, ± flat. Ray florets very numerous, fertile, female, in 2 or more series with very narrow white, pink or purple ligules; disc florets fertile, bisexual, tubular, yellow. Style branches flattened.
Achenes flattened, usually pubescent, 2–4-veined; pappus of numerous capillary bristles, often with a short outer series of minute bristles or scales.
Distribution and occurrence: World: >200 species, temperate Northern Hemisphere & mountainous tropical regions. Australia: 8 species (5 species endemic, 3 species naturalized), N.S.W., Vic., Tas., N.T., S.A.
Text by M. F. Porteners
Taxon concept:
Taxa not yet included in identification key
Erigeron bellidioides,
Erigeron nitidus,
Erigeron paludicola,
Erigeron sessilifolius
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Plant much-branched towards the apex, with few to numerous flower heads; leaves basal and cauline, acute | 2 |
| Plant unbranched, with a single scape bearing a solitary flower head; leaves forming a basal rosette, obtuse | 3 |
| 2 | Stems and leaves more or less glabrous; lower leaves entire, 2–8 cm long; involucral bracts 4–8 mm long | Erigeron conyzoides |
| Stems and leaves coarsely hairy; lower leaves 3-lobed or 3–5-toothed at apex, 0.5–3 cm long; involucral bracts 3–4 mm long
Back to 1 | Erigeron karvinskianus |
| 3 | Leaves 0.6–1.5 cm long, narrow-oblanceolate to narrow-spathulate, coarsely hispid (bristly) | Erigeron setosus |
| Leaves 2–9 cm long, broad-oblanceolate to broad-spathulate, glabrous to coarsely hirsute (not bristly)
Back to 1 | 4 |
| 4 | Leaves more or less glabrous and viscid | Erigeron species A |
| Leaves hairy, not viscid
Back to 3 | 5 |
| 5 | Leaves sparsely hirsute, finely attenuate; heads 12–15 mm diam | Erigeron species B |
| Leaves moderately to densely hirsute, narrowed into a long petiole; heads 20–25 mm diam
Back to 4 | Erigeron pappocromus |
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