[Introduction]
Blumea DC. is a genus with over 80 species, distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, Africa, and Oceania. There are 30 species in China, found in various provinces and regions south of the Yangtze River, ranging from the southeast to the southwest. The leaves of Blumea balsamifera (L.) DC. can be used to produce Bingpian, a medicinal substance.
[Morphological Characteristics]
Blumea species are annual or perennial herbs, subshrubs, or climbers, often aromatic. Stems are erect, ascending, prostrate, or climbing, stout or slender, cylindrical, with a slightly woody base and covered in hairs. Leaves are alternate, sessile, petiolate, or extending down the stem as wings, with fine teeth, coarse teeth, heavy serrations, or lobed or pinnately divided margins, rarely entire. Inflorescences are small or medium-sized heads, few to numerous, sessile or pedunculate, axillary and terminal, arranged in elongate or pyramidal panicles, rarely condensed into globose or spicate panicles, discoid, with many disc florets, outer female florets in multiple layers, fertile, yellow or purplish red, central bisexual florets numerous or few, fertile or rarely incompletely developed, yellow or purplish red. Involucres are hemispherical, cylindrical, or campanulate, with many overlapping involucral bracts, green or purplish red, outer bracts very short, linear, or elongate-ovate, coriaceous or with a dry membranous margin, hairy on the back, inner bracts narrow, linear or linear-lanceolate, with narrow or wide membranous margins, sparsely hairy or occasionally hairless on the back. Receptacles are flat or slightly convex, sometimes more or less concave in the center, glabrous or with soft hairs, honeycombed or with blister-like projections. Ray florets are bisexual, few, with a 5-toothed apex; female florets have tubular corollas with 2-4 lobes at the limb; bisexual florets have tubular corollas that gradually expand upwards, with 5 shallow lobes or rarely 6 shallow lobes. Anthers are 5, connate, with a slightly pointed, blunt, or truncate apex, and a lanceolate base with a long tapering or bristle-like tail. Anthers have tails; styles are narrowly branched, flattened or nearly thread-like, with a blunt or slightly pointed apex, usually with papillate projections. Achenes are small, cylindrical or nearly fusiform, with or without ribs, glabrous or with short soft hairs. Pappus is single-layered, deciduous or not easily deciduous, rough-hairy, white, pale red, or yellow-brown.
[Distribution]
Blumea species are found in tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, Africa, and Oceania. There are 30 species in China, distributed in various provinces and regions south of the Yangtze River.
[Subdivisions]
Sect. Dissitiflorae DC.
Sect. Macrophllae DC.
Sect. Oxyodontae DC.
Sect. Paniculatae DC.
Sect. Sagittatae Randeria
Sect. Semivestitae DC.
