1. Berlandiera texana DC. (Texas green eyes)

Pl. 272 c; Map 1148

Plants perennial herbs, with fleshy taproots, the stem bases often somewhat woody. Stems 50–120(–200) cm long, usually several-branched toward the tip, erect or ascending, finely ridged or grooved, moderately to densely pubescent with soft, loosely tangled hairs. Leaves alternate, sessile or very short-petiolate. Leaf blades 1–15 cm long, the uppermost often narrowly lanceolate, the main stem leaves ovate to ovate-triangular, shallowly cordate to truncate or rounded at the often somewhat clasping base, angled or tapered to a bluntly or more commonly sharply pointed tip, the margins mostly coarsely and bluntly toothed or scalloped and short-hairy, the upper surface moderately pubescent with short, curved hairs, the undersurface densely hairy with short, soft, curved hairs and often appearing grayish green. Inflorescences of solitary heads or small clusters at the branch tips, sometimes appearing as open, more or less flat-topped panicles, the heads with short to relatively long, bractless, densely hairy stalks. Heads radiate. Involucre 6–10 mm long, 9–15 mm in diameter, mostly broadly cup-shaped to slightly bell-shaped, the bracts in 2 or 3 somewhat unequal, overlapping series. Involucral bracts 14–22, loosely ascending or the tip somewhat reflexed or spreading, those of the outer series oblong-lanceolate to narrowly ovate, bluntly to sharply pointed at the tip, those of the inner series broadly obovate to broadly rhombic, sharply pointed at the tip, both series green with entire, hairy margins, the surfaces densely hairy and with minute, orange glands, with 5–11 fine nerves (these sometimes obscured by the hairs). Receptacle shallowly convex to low-conical but usually with a flat or slightly concave central portion, not noticeably elongating as the fruits mature, with chaffy bracts subtending the disc florets, these 4–5 mm long, linear to narrowly oblong, hairy, especially along the margins, relatively flat and not wrapped around the florets. Ray florets 5–11, pistillate (with a 2-branched style exserted from the short tube at flowering), the corolla 10–20 mm long, relatively broad, yellow to orangish yellow, the tube densely hairy and glandular, the ligule with the undersurface sparsely to moderately hairy, glandular, and with green veins, not persistent at fruiting. Disc florets numerous, staminate (the nonfunctional ovary slender and hairy), the corolla 3–4 mm long, brownish red to dark reddish purple, sparsely glandular and with the lobes usually densely short-hairy on the upper surface, not expanded at the base or persistent at fruiting. Style branches with the sterile tip very short and more or less truncate. Pappus of the ray and disc florets absent or occasionally of a few minute, papery teeth. Fruits 4.5–6.0 mm long, obovate to broadly oblong-obovate, strongly flattened, black, the inner surface densely hairy but difficult to observe because obscured by the basally fused sterile ovaries of the adjacent disc florets and chaffy bracts, the outer surface fused with the adjacent involucral bract (this tan to brown at fruiting), the whole assemblage dispersed as an intact unit. 2n=30. June–October.

Scattered in the Ozark Division (New Mexico to Texas north to Kansas and Missouri). Upland prairies, glades, ledges and tops of bluffs, and openings of mesic to dry upland forests; also pastures, old fields, and roadsides.

This attractive species deserves to be cultivated more widely as an ornamental in sunny gardens.