Xenophyllum crassum (S.F.Blake) V.A.Funk, Novon 7(3): 239. 1997.

Calvo, Joel & Moreira-Munoz, Andres, 2020, Taxonomic revision of the Andean genus Xenophyllum (Compositae, Senecioneae), PhytoKeys 158, pp. 1-106 : 1

7. Xenophyllum crassum (S.F.Blake) V.A.Funk, Novon 7(3): 239. 1997.

Werneria crassa S.F.Blake, J. Washington Acad. Sci. 18: 495. 1928. Type. Colombia. Caldas: páramo del Quindío, 3700-4200 m, 15/20 Aug 1922, F.W. Pennell & T.E. Hazen 10031 (lectotype: K-000527739 (digital image!), designated by Funk (1997a: 239); isolectotypes: GH s.n.!, NY s.n.!).

Description.

Suffruticose plant, forming dense mats or hummocks, with rhizome-like stems up to 17 cm long covered with matted lanate indumentum and leaf bases, rather erect, simple or branched from the base. Stems 1.5-4 cm tall (aerial part), lanate. Leaves stellate-imbricate, extending into a sheath-like base that bears long silky trichomes, usually with the leaf lamina spreading at nearly 90° from the sheath-like base; leaf laminas 6.5-27.6 × 1.2-2.2 mm, linear, obtuse, usually callous-like tipped at the apex, entire, flat to elliptical in cross section, glabrous, 1-nerved above, 1-nerved beneath, fleshy, matte or shiny. Capitula radiate, erect, sessile to subsessile (rarely with a short peduncle up to 8 mm long). Involucres 10.2-19.7 × 7.8-15.8 mm, cupuliform; involucral bracts 11 to 21, 6-14.9 × 1.6-2.2 mm, rather acute at the apex, greenish to dark-purplish. Ray florets 13 to 21; corollas 13-19.7 × 1.7-3.4 mm, 4 to 6-veined, subentire to 3-toothed at the apex, conspicuously surpassing the involucre, white. Disc florets 50 to 95; corollas 6.6-8.1 mm long, yellow; style branches truncate with a crown of sweeping trichomes, yellowish, purple-tipped. Achenes 2.6-4 × 0.8-1 mm, cylindrical, 6 to 8-ribbed, glabrous; pappus 7.8-19 mm long, barbellate, whitish. Chromosome number unknown.

Notes.

Funk (1997a) stated that the holotype of the name Werneria crassa S.F.Blake (US-1141291) may had been destroyed while on loan to B, and accordingly, she designated the duplicate at K as the lectotype ( Turland et al. 2018, ICN Art. 9.3).