After Olaus Olai Rudbeck (1660–1740), a Swedish physician and botanist.
Perennial or rarely annual or biennial herbs, glabrous to hairy. Stems erect, simple or branched. Leaves along stems, mostly alternate, margins entire to divided, sessile or petiolate. Capitula radiate or rarely diskoid, terminal, usually solitary, with stalks. Involucral bracts in 2-4 rows, overlapping, unequal, spreading. Receptacle with scales, conical to cylindrical. Ray florets sterile, usually ligulate, yellow and/or reddish. Disk florets bisexual, tubular, brown or yellowish. Achenes oblong or pyramidal, 4-angled. Pappus of 2-4 basally joined scales or absent.
Large showy capitula, often with yellow or reddish ray florets; conical to cylindrical receptacle with often deciduous scales.
About 16 species from N America.
Perdue (1957).
Source: (2002). Dahlia. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 4. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 3. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
Cultivars and seed mixes of uncertain parentage
To 60 cm tall with double and semi-double long-lasting gold flowers about 10 cm wide. A seed mix.
Compact plant to 60 cm tall with large golden orange flowers with black central cones. 'Marmalade Dwarf' is presumably a small version.