Cratystylis
Tomentose, dioecious or subdioecious shrubs. Leaves alternate, crowded, entire, sessile. Capitula unisexual, cylindric, terminal, solitary, sessile on leafy branchlets; involucral bracts 4- or 5-seriate, imbricate, unequal, leathery to scarious; receptacle minute, convex, naked. Florets of female capitula filiform; corolla deeply 5-lobed, white; anthers 4 or 5, free, abortive; style thick and rigid with elliptic branches; cypselas terete, ribbed, glabrous; pappus of many free plumose bristles; florets of male capitula tubular; corolla deeply 5-lobed; anthers connate, acute at base, terminated by lanceolate appendages; style as in female florets. Cypselas abortive.
3 species, all endemic to Australia. Cratystylis was of uncertain tribal placement having previously been placed in tribes Astereae, Inuleae, and Plucheeae of the subfamily Asteroideae and also as an isolated member of subfamily Cichorioideae unassigned to a tribe (Bremer 1994). Phylogenetic analyses of chloroplast DNA sequences have since provided strong support for its placement in Tribe Plucheeae (Bayer & Cross 2003).
Jeanes, J.A. (1999). Asteraceae. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 4, Cornaceae to Asteraceae, pp. 652–666. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
Spinning
