The Francoaceae are a small family of plant

Plant

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

s, including the 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...

 Francoa

Francoa

Francoa is a genus of the Francoaceae family which consists of herbs endemic to Chile. Plants may grow up to one metre high and produce basal clumps of round, deeply lobed, dark green, fuzzy leaves with winged leafstalks...

, commonly known as Bridal Wreaths. There are two genera, each with a single species.

The Francoaceae are 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...

 herb

Herb

Except in botanical usage, an herb is "any plant with leaves, seeds, or flowers used for flavoring, food, medicine, or perfume" or "a part of such a plant as used in cooking"...

s characterized by a basal aggregation of alternate petiolated leaves

Leaf

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

. The leaf blades (lamina) are either dissected, or entire.

The Bridal Wreaths are native to Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

. Francoa sonchifolia may grow up to one metre high and produces basal clumps of round, deeply lobed, dark green, fuzzy leaves with winged leafstalks. Compact raceme

Raceme

A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...

s of small, cup-shaped flowers, which are pink with red markings, appear in summer and early fall.