Cosmos caudatus

Annual herb 0.3Ð2.5 m high, with a weak taproot. Stems erect, branched, glabrous or sparsely hispid. Leaves cauline, alternate, deeply lobed, petioles 10Ð70 mm long, blades 100Ð200 mm long, ultimate lobes 2Ð10 mm wide, margins spinulose-ciliate, apices acute, often mucronulate. Synflorescences 100Ð300 mm long, spreading with linear-subulate bractlets 6Ð10 mm long, apices acuminate. Capitula 5Ð15 mm diam., involucral bracts erect, oblong-lanceolate, 7Ð11 mm long with apices acute to obtuse apices, ray florets rose-pink to purple, laminae oblong-oblanceolate, 5Ð15 mm long with obtusely 3-lobed apices, disc florets 5Ð6 mm long. Cypselae light brown, 12Ð35 mm long, glabrous or scabridulous proximally, setose distally, pappus 2Ð3 widely divergent to reflexed awns 3Ð5 mm long (description compiled from Pruski 1997, Beentje and Hind 2005, Kiger 2006, Puttock pers. obs.).