Florida tasselflower

Emilia fosbergii, the Florida tasselflower or Flora's paintbrush, is an erect annual herb of the Asteraceae family reaching up to about one metre in height. Plants usually grow from a single, sparsely branched central stem that is smooth or thinly hairy. The leaves are alternate; the lower ones are stalked, broadly ovate to lyrate with toothed or slightly lobed margins, while the upper leaves are smaller, narrower and sessile with a distinctly clasping, somewhat arrow-shaped base. The inflorescence is a small open panicle of long-stalked flower heads. Each head is a tight, cylindrical to barrel-shaped capitulum of more than sixty small disc florets in vivid pink, magenta, red or purple, with no ray florets at all, producing the characteristic tassel appearance for which the genus is named. The seed-like achenes are slender and ribbed, each topped by a tuft of fine white pappus bristles that aid in wind dispersal. The species is widespread across tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia, the Americas and Pacific islands; its precise area of origin remains uncertain.