360. Constancea B. G. Baldwin, Madroño. 46: 159. 2000.
[For Lincoln Constance, 1909–2001, Californian botanist]
Bruce G. Baldwin, John L. Strother
Subshrubs, 50–150(–200) cm. Stems decumbent to ± erect, branched from bases or throughout (densely white-tomentose to glabrate). Leaves cauline; alternate; petiolate; blades broadly ovate, 1–2-pinnately lobed (lobes oblong or oblanceolate to linear), ultimate margins entire (somewhat revolute, apices ± rounded), faces white-tomentose (adaxial often glabrescent). Heads radiate, (50–100+) in corymbiform or paniculiform arrays. Involucres cylindric to campanulate, 3–5 mm diam. Phyllaries persistent, 8–16 in ± 2 series (± erect in fruit, distinct, oblong to linear, ± herbaceous, ± keeled). Receptacles flat to convex, shallowly pitted, glabrous, epaleate. Ray florets 4–9, pistillate, fertile; corollas yellow. Disc florets 10–25+, bisexual, fertile; corollas yellow, tubes shorter than campanulate or narrowly funnelform throats, lobes 5, deltate. Cypselae (blackish, dull) obpyramidal to clavate, ± scabrellous to glabrate; pappi persistent, of 2–6+ unequal (or 2 opposite, longer, and ± equal), basally connate, oblong to subulate scales (tips acute to erose). x = 19.
Species 1: California.
Recognition of Constancea is based on morphologic, cytologic, and molecular evidence for polyphyly of Eriophyllum if E. nevinii is included. Constancea has characteristics found in other, closely related x = 19 "helenioid" genera that are unusual or absent in the clade represented by Eriophyllum, Pseudobahia, and Syntrichopappus, such as leaves with well-developed petioles, phyllaries in more than one series and more than the number of ray florets, and pappus scales unequal or a longer pair opposite and ± equal. The previously suggested close relationship between Constancea and another coastal subshrub, E. staechadifolium, is untenable.
