370 MR. G. BENTHAM ON COMPOSITAE. 
pales, the receptacle is fimbrillate, setiferous when these sete are 
elongated; and if the margins of the pits rise considerably (some- 
times enclosing the whole achene) it is termed alveolate or honey- 
combed. All these varieties in the non-paleaceous receptacle are 
usually noticed in generic characters, and they are sometimes 
constant in good genera; but in general they have been too much 
insisted on, and have produced purely artificial combinations. The 
Cynaroidex, however, are remarkable for the setose character of 
the receptacle throughout the tribe, with the exception of Ono- 
pordon and very few other species rather than genera, where the 
sete become very short or disappear altogether, and a few others 
where the sete are more or less combined into true pales. The 
alveolate receptacle is most remarkable in some small or mono- 
typie genera belonging to very different tribes, e. g. Albertinia in 
Vernoniaces, and Baldnina in Helianthoidez. It is also charac- 
teristic of several genera of Arctotidez. 
When the involucral bracts of the innermost row precisely sub- 
tend the florets of the outermost row, and more or less enclose or 
become adnate to them, or assume more or less of the character of 
receptacular pales, they often acquire a generie or even a sub- 
tribual importance, as in several Helianthoider, Helenioides, or 
Cichoriacez, although occasionally the difference may be little more 
than specific. 
9. Differences in the Foliage. 
The foliage in Composite is, within certain limits, as variable as 
in other large orders. It has no one peculiar character which 
cannot be matched in many other orders; and the only two fea- 
tures of importance which it does not possess are (1) that there 
are no stipules (for the auricular expansions at the base of the 
petiole in some species of Liabum, a very few Helianthoidex, dc. 
cannot be properly designated as such), and (2) that the leaves, 
though often much divided, are never compound with articulate 
leaflets. Amongst all variations to which it is liable, there is one 
only of any systematic importance—the difference between the 
opposite (including the rare instances of strictly verticillate) and 
the alternate leaves, which sometimes constitutes a good, though 
not quite absolute, tribual character, although also in other in- 
stances itis not even generic. Thus the leaves are alternate, with 
few exceptions, in Vernoniacez, Asteroides, Inuloidese, Anthe- 
mides, Calendulacewm, Arctotides, Cynaroidew, Mutisiacem, and 
