Taraxacum sect. Scariosa

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The Taraxacum sect. Scariosa Hand.-Mazz., 1907 is a section of angiosperme dictyldoni of the genus Taraxacum of the Asteraceae family.

Etymology
The scientific name of the section was first defined by the botanist Heinrich Raphael Eduard Handel-Mazzetti (1882-1940) in the publication " Monographie der Gattung Taraxacum" ( Monogr. Taraxacum: XI. ) 1907.

Description

Habitus. The species of this group are generally not very high perennial plants. The prevailing biological form is rosed hemicrypthophyte (H ros), that is, herbaceous plants, perennial biological cycle, with wintering buds at the ground level and protected by the litter or snow and have the leaves arranged to form a basal rosette. The reproduction of the species of this genus can occur normally by sexual means or even in apomitic way.

Radici. The roots are robust, sometimes ramified, and the collar is steep for woolly and short hairs. The fitton is perennial and when it increases in thickness its length expands and contractes alternately. In the root there is a bitter latex.

That's it. The real aerial part of the stem is absent: on the apical part of the rhizome, placed at the level of the soil, emerges directly the basal rosette and one or more peduncoli cables and afills of the inflorescence; these can be glabri or villosis (especially in the distant part). The plants of this group are 10 – 20 cm tall.

Leaves. The leaves are only basal (radical) with alternating arrangement along the caule. The pigeon is short. Lamina has an oval shape. The margins are deeply divided and coarsely dense in saws (rarely they are whole). The apics are rounded or octus. The faces are glabrous or weakly villous.

Inflorescence. The inflorescences are composed of many cylindrical heads at the base and peduncolati (the peduncles are woolly and ispid). The flowering heads are pressed to the ground, but then they are erect. The capolini, small and pauciflori, are formed by an oblong bell-shaped casing composed of bracts (or scales) arranged in two main series in an embryonic way, inside which a recipelet is based on the flowers all ligulati. The scales are divided into internal and external (the latter form a basal glass to the casing). The outer ones are thickened with largely oval forms; the margins are membranous and reddened; in the apical part they are characterized by the "corns" whose shape is useful to distinguish one species from the other. The recipe is flat and buttered (in the end it becomes convex), it is also naked, that is, free of straws to protect the base of the flowers.

Flowers. The flowers (typically few), all ligulated, are tetra-cyclic (i.e. there are 4 vertices: calyx – corolla – androceum – gyneceum) and pentamers (e.g., each vertex has 5 elements). The flowers are hermaphrodite, fertile and zygomorphic.

Formula fio