480 MR. G. BENTHAM ON COMPOSITA. 
Lapsana, belonging to the extratropical regions of the northern 
hemisphere in the Old World, has one European species very 
widely spread, and is found asa colonist in North America as well 
as in other distant parts of the globe. The genus, however, is 
truly represented in North America by the nearly allied mono- 
typie Apogon, a Japanese species of Lapsana being almost inter- 
mediate between the common one and this Apogon. 
Cichorium is a very distinct genus, of which one species is 
widely distributed over the northern hemisphere in the Old World, 
readily colonizing in many other districts; and a second is limited 
to the eastern and southern portions of the Mediterranean region. 
The cultivated Chicory, often given as a third East-Indian species, 
is probably only a cultivated modification of the common C. Zntybus. 
The genus is wholly unrepresented by any endemic American form. 
Catananche, five species, and the monotypic Hymenonema and 
Henseleria form a very distinct Mediterranean group unknown 
elsewhere; Henseleria is western, Hymenonema eastern; Cata- 
nanche is both. 
Scolymus, three species from the same region, is still more isolated 
in habit and foliage, which is almost that of a thistle, and in struc- 
ture, which, except in those invariable characters which place it 
among Cichoriaces, is unlike that of any other known Composite. 
We have finally two very remarkable arborescent insular 
genera; Dendroseris, seven species, from the island of Juan Fer- 
nandez, and Fitchia, one species, from the Pacifie islands. Both 
are truly Cichoriaceous in their corollas, anthers, and styles, and 
Dendroseris, at least, in the milky juice of its bark; but their 
achenes are different from those of Cichoriacex generally, as well 
as their involucres and habit; and Fitchia, in its receptacular 
pales, awned achenes, &c., recalls the Helianthoidee. 
Having thus rapidly sketched out the principal facts which 
have struck me in the investigation of the geographical distribu- 
tion of the genera of Composite, as compared with their struc- 
tural characters, we may proceed to the inquiry as to how far they 
can assist us in the solution of the two great problems :— Which, 
amongst the numerous types or generie forms now exhibited by 
the order, represent the most ancient races, the nearest to the 
primitive form of the order? And what are the principal centres 
where the greater number of the present races appear to have 
been differentiated, and whence they have spread over the areas 
