Cicerbita is a genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of plants in the Asteraceae

Asteraceae

The Asteraceae or Compositae , is an exceedingly large and widespread family of vascular plants. The group has more than 22,750 currently accepted species, spread across 1620 genera and 12 subfamilies...

 family.

Description

Cicerbita are mostly quite strong, perennial

Perennial plant

A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

 herbaceous plant

Herbaceous plant

A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...

s. Their leaves are lyre-shaped or toothed pinnate

Pinnate

Pinnate is a term used to describe feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis in plant or animal structures, and comes from the Latin word pinna meaning "feather", "wing", or "fin". A similar term is pectinate, which refers to a comb-like arrangement of parts...

 with a terminal lobe which is clearly larger than the side lobes. Some species have only one pair of rather small side lobes. This clearly unequal division of the leaves differentiates the genus from the closely related Lactuca

Lactuca

Lactuca, commonly known as lettuce, is a genus of flowering plants in the daisy family Asteraceae. The genus includes about 100 species, distributed worldwide, but mainly in temperate Eurasia....

(lettuce

Lettuce

Lettuce is a temperate annual or biennial plant of the daisy family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable. It is eaten either raw, notably in salads, sandwiches, hamburgers, tacos, and many other dishes, or cooked, as in Chinese cuisine in which the stem becomes just as important...

), in which Cicerbita is often included.

The blue to bluish-violet flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

s are in terminal panicle

Panicle

A panicle is a compound raceme, a loose, much-branched indeterminate inflorescence with pedicellate flowers attached along the secondary branches; in other words, a branched cluster of flowers in which the branches are racemes....

s. The fruits have a simple pappus

Pappus (flower structure)

The pappus is the modified calyx, the part of an individual disk, ray or ligule floret surrounding the base of the corolla, in flower heads of the plant family Asteraceae. The pappus may be composed of bristles , awns, scales, or may be absent. In some species, the pappus is too small to see...

 which is not beaked.

Species

There are 20 to 25 species in the genus Cicerbita, which are distributed over the Northern Hemisphere

Northern Hemisphere

The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of its equator—the word hemisphere literally means “half sphere”. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...

 (Eurasia

Eurasia

Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...

, North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, and northern Africa). One species (C. tianshamica) is sometimes used as an ornamental plant.

Some species are:

• C. alpina
  Cicerbita alpina
  Cicerbita alpina or Alpine Blue-sow-thistle is a perennial herbaceous plant species belonging to the genus Cicerbita of the Asteraceae family.-Description:...
  
  
• C. macropylla
• C. plumieri