Citation: A.L. Juss., Gen. Pl. 129 (1789).

Derivation: Greek phakelos, a cluster; alluding to the dense arrangement of the flowers.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: None

Description:
Annuals with few little-branched erect stems from the base, with a distinct tap root; leaves alternate, usually petiolate, bipinnately compound to pinnatifid.

Inflorescence terminal, with 1 to few circinnate monochasia, each usually once dichotomously branched, with almost sessile flowers densely arranged in 2 more or less clear rows, without bracts on the inflorescence; sepals scarcely connate basally, not accrescent; corolla regular, funnel-shaped to campanulate, with scales fused around the attachment of the filaments to the corolla tube; stamens with filaments fused to the lower third of the corolla tube, with the free filaments slender and exserting the anthers above the corolla, with anthers medifixed; ovary ovoid, usually 2-loculed by the fusion of 2 enlarged parietal placentas, abruptly tapering into 2 terminal styles which are connate in the lower third, each terminating in an indistinct terminal stigma.

Fruit a loculicidal capsule with 1 rarely 2 seeds in each locule.

Distribution:  About 200 species mainly in the western United States and Mexico but a few species in the eastern parts of the United States and in South America; 1 species naturalised in Australia.

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available