Onoseris
(from onos, an ass, and Seris, Endive; a salad for asses). Including Centroclinium and Chaetachlaena. ORD. Compositae. A genus comprising about a dozen species of stove, greenhouse, or hardy, annual or perennial herbs, or shrubs, of variable habit, natives of the Andes or extra-tropical South America, one being Brazilian. Flower-heads purple, pink, or white, large, solitary or paniculate, on long peduncles or scapes; involucre hemispherical or turbinate; receptacle naked or pilose-fibrillose. Leaves radical or alternate, white-tomentose beneath. The species succeed in a light vegetable soil. Propagation is effected by means of seeds. Probably the species here described are the only ones yet introduced to cultivation.
O. adpressa (adpressed). fl.-heads large, fragrant; ray and disk similar to those of O. reflexa. June to December. l. numerous, spreading, reflexed, 3in. or more long, lanceolate, waved, and nearly entire, pure white and cottony beneath. Stem shrubby, 1ft. to 2ft. high; branches white, woolly. Peru, 1830. Stove shrub. (B. M. 3115, under name of Centroclinium adpressum.)
O. Drakeana (Drake's).* fl.-heads bright purple, long-stalked. l. cordate-ovate, petiolate, white-tomentose beneath. New Grenada, 1883. Greenhouse, shrubby perennial. (R. H. 1883, 180.) O. reflexa (reflexed). fl.-heads large, handsome, fragrant; ray-florets nine to twelve, rose-purple, two-lipped, three-toothed; disk deep yellow, very prominent; peduncles solitary. Late autumn. l. spreading, 2in. to 3in. long, ovate-lanceolate, acute, coarsely toothed, gradually tapering to a petiole, woolly beneath. h. 1 1/2ft. to 2ft. Peru, 1830. Stove annual. (B. M. 3114, under name of Centroclinium reflexum.)