Chrysactinium (Compositae: Liabeae) is composed of six species, all restricted to the Paramotype regions of Ecuador and Peru. Chrysactinium bngiradiatum and C. rosulatum are considered synonymous with C. acaule because of the high levels of variation exhibited in the characters previously used to distinguish them. Chrysactinium (Kunth) Wedd. (Compositae: Liabeae) is a genus of six species of small, herbaceous perennials endemic to the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Andes. The species grow on mountain slopes at elevations higher than 2,800 m and are relatively rare today, although for two of the species, C. acuale and C. hieracioides, the number of herbarium specimens seems to indicate that they were more commonly found in the past. The highest concentration of species diversity and morphological variation is found in the northern Peruvian provinces of Cajamarca, Amazonas, Chachapoyas, and Ancash. Chrysactinium is easily identified by its herbaceous habit, light-colored, dense, woolly tomentum on the abaxial surface of the leaves, long and slender peduncles, solitary heads with yellow ray and disk corollas (Chrysactinium is greek for golden rays), dark brown or black anthers, and white pappus. Kunth was the first to describe any members of this genus and he placed into Andromachia section Chrysactinium (Humboldt et al. 1818) two species, A. acaulis and A. hieracioides. Andromachia Humboldt and Bonpland was based on an andean concept and was subsequently submerged into the genus Liabum Adans., which was described from material from the Greater Antilles. Lessing (1831) transferred the two Kunth species into Liabum. Weddell (1855-1857) described Chrysactinium using A. acuale as the type species. Subsequently Hieronymus (1895, 1905) described three new species as Liabum: L. caulescens, L. bngiradiatum, and L. rosulatum. Blake (1927) described four new species as Liabum: L. arthrothrix, L. amphothrix, L. bicolor, and L. tenius. In 1974 Robinson and Brettell resurrected Chrysactinium and transferred into it all the species listed above. Recently, two new species have been added, C. breviscapum (Sagastegui-Alva and Dillon 1994) and C. wurdackii (Zermoglio and Funk 1997).
