17. Centipeda, Lour.

Annual or perennial herbs. Leaves alternate, entire or coarsely toothed. Heads small, sessile on the branches or racemose, heterogamous and discoid. Involucre hemispherical; bracts in 2 series, subequal, margins scarious. Receptacle flat or convex, naked. Female florets exterior, in several rows, fertile; corolla minute, tubular; obscurely lobed. Disc-florets few, hermaphrodite, campanulate, page 3604-lobed. Anthers obtuse at the base. Style-branches of the disc-florets short, truncate. Achenes scarcely compressed, obtusely 3–4-ribbed or -angled. Pappus wanting.

A small genus of 4 species, 3 of which are Asiatic or Australasian, the fourth South American. It is closely allied to Cotula, but differs in the inflorescence and in the tubular corollas of the female florets. The New Zealand species extends to Australia, the Pacific islands, and eastern tropical Asia.