Crassocephalum crepidioides (Benth.) S.Moore

Global description
 
Crassocephalum crepidioides is a terrestrial herb, annual, erect, up to 100 cm high. The taproots are white or brown. Stem with rounded or fluted cross-section, solid, hairy. Stipules absent. Leaves simple, divided, spirally alternate, sessile or stalked, glabrous or pubescent on both sides, margin coarsely dentated, acute apex and base, pinnately veined. Flowers are bisexual, sessile, red or red-brown, grouped in terminal capitulums with only tubular flowers. The fruit is an achene with pappus.
 
Cotyledons

The petiole of the cotyledons (2-3 mm long) is glabrous, purple in colour color in its lower part. The leaf blade is broadly ovate, with obtuse base, obtuse apiculate tip, entire margin. It is 5.5 mm long and 5 mm wide. It is completely glabrous. Its upper surface which is covered by a purple midrib, is green-blue in color.
 
First leaves
 
The first leaf is subsessile, oval to largely ovale blade, obtuse to attenuated base, acute tip, notched to dentate margin. It is 5.5 to 9 mm long and 6.5 to 4 mm wide. The underside is glabrous, purple green, the upper side is pubescent, blue green, palmately veined. The ribs of the lower face has sparse violet hairs.
 
General habit
 
Annual herbaceous plant, aromatic, slightly branched, measuring 40 cm to 1 m high.
 
Underground system
 
The plant has a taproot system.
 
Stem
 
The stem, rather solid, is furrowed, glabrescent in its lower part, covered with short and thick bristles in its upper part. The branches are covered with a dense pubescence.
 
Leaf
 
The leaves are simple, alternate, very variable in shape. The basal leaves are sessile, held by a pseudo-petiole more or less long, corresponding to the base of the blade highly attenuated along the midrib. The lamina is generally oval or elliptical, of 6 to 18 cm long and 2 to 5 cm wide, having 0 to 4 pinnated lobes more or less deep towards the base. The apex is acute to acuminate. The margin is irregularly serrated, the alternate venation is visible, both sides are shortly pubescent. The upper leaves are become smaller in size, sessile, with elliptical blade increasingly narrow. The leaves are dark green in colour.
 
Inflorescence
 
The inflorescence consists of numerous capitulums, assembled in groups on top of long floral peduncles arranged in terminal cymes. The capitulums are  quickly faling. Each capitulum is supported by a short pedicel inserted in the axils of a linear lanceolate leafy bract. The capitulum measures 4-6 mm in diameter and 11 to 13 mm in height, surrounded by an involucre of bracts in 2 series. External bracts are few (8 to 11) and more or less spreading, linear, measuring 1/4 to 1/3 of the length of the inner bracts. Internal bracts are numerous (13 to 18), erect, linear, long 10 to 11 mm, ending in a tip of black purple.
 
Flower
 
The flowers are bisexual, tubular all, from 9 to 11 mm long and 0.5 mm wide, yellow in colour, dark orange red at the tip, rarely completely yellow. The anthers are purple. The style is long bifid.
 
Fruit
 
The fruit is a cylindrical linear achene 2 mm long, streaked longitudinally, finely pubescent. It is a dark brown in colour with the base and the end paler in colour. The pappus is composed of many white thin bristles, with tiny tines. These bristles, measure 9 to12 mm long, and are deciduous.

Origin

Crassocephalum crepidioides is native to tropical Africa and Madagascar.

Worldwide distribution

Crassocephalum crepidioides is found throughout tropical Africa, from Senegal to Ethiopia, South Africa and Madagascar. It is also found in Mauritius and Réunion, where it was introduced and is now naturalised. It has been introduced and naturalised throughout tropical and subtropical Asia, Australia, the New Hebrides, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, and in some countries in Central America (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras) and the Caribbean (Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico).

 

https://www.gbif.org/species/3115443