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Yellow Roundhead Aster
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Yellow Roundhead Aster
P Native Photo: Krishan Lal
Common name: Yellow Roundhead Aster
Botanical name: Aster holohermaphroditus    Family: Asteraceae (Sunflower family)
Synonyms: Heteropappus holohermaphroditus

Yellow Roundhead Aster is an interesting Aster with yellow flower-heads, 1-1.5 cm across, with no ray florets, borne at branch ends. Heads are carried on flower-cluster-stalk 1-5 cm long. Involucral bracts are 1-2-seriate, about 6 mm long. Disc florets are yellow, about 5 mm long; yellow, tubes about 1 mm long; lobes 1 - 2 mm long. Style appendages are lanceshaped about 4 mm long. It is a herb, 20-40 cm high; stems simple, velvet-hairy, many from woody base. Leaves are inverted-lanceshaped, spoon-shaped or broadly linear, inverted-lanceshaped, blunt and with a short sharp point at tip, narrowed at base, entire, 1 - 2.5 x 0.3 - 0.5 cm, minutely hairy, stalkless. Seed-pods are pale brown, obovate, about 3 mm long, sparsely glandular, pappus reddish brown simple, about 4 mm long. Yellow Roundhead Aster is found in W. Himalayas, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh & Pakistan, at altitudes up to 3000 m. Flowering: July-August.

Identification credit: Krishan Lal Photographed in Kelang, Lahaul, Himachal Pradesh.

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