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Scalesia
Scalesia is a genus in the family Asteraceae endemic to the Galapagos Islands. It contains fifteen species that grow as shrubs or trees. This is unusual, because tree species are uncommon in Asteraceae. The genus Scalesia resulted from a blunder by Arnott who named it in honour of "W. Scales Esq., Cawdor Castle, Elginshire" but discovered after publication that the name should have read 'Stables', after Scottish botanist, William Alexander Stables (1810–1890).
All of the species have soft, pithy wood. Scalesia species have been called "the Darwin's finches of the plant world" because they show a similarly dramatic pattern of adaptive radiation.
15 branches of this genus, most-observed first

Scalesia pedunculata
speciesScalesia pedunculata

Radiate-headed Scalesia
speciesScalesia affinis

Heller's scalesia
speciesScalesia helleri

Scalesia gordilloi
speciesScalesia gordilloi

Scalesia villosa
speciesScalesia villosa

Scalesia stewartii
speciesScalesia stewartii

Scalesia cordata
speciesScalesia cordata

Scalesia incisa
speciesScalesia incisa

Scalesia crockeri
speciesScalesia crockeri

Scalesia baurii
speciesScalesia baurii

Scalesia divisa
speciesScalesia divisa

Scalesia microcephala
speciesScalesia microcephala

Scalesia retroflexa
speciesScalesia retroflexa
Scalesia aspera
speciesScalesia aspera
Scalesia atractyloides
speciesScalesia atractyloides
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Scalesia in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 62816.