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species are so much alike in aspect, flowers, leaves, ete., that safe char- 
acters are only to be obtained from the fruit. 
* Fertile cell broader than empty ones: cross-section of fruit triangular. 
1. V. amarella Krok. Amply corymbose-branched above, bearing numerous and 
rather open cymes: bracts lanceolate-linear, small: fruit very small (about 1 mm. 
long), densely white-hirsute. (J’edia amarella Lindh.)—Low grounds, in eastern and 
southern Texas. 
* * Pertile cell as broad as the empty ones, beaked: cross-section quadrate, 
9. V. radiata Dufr. Fruit ovate-tetragonal, downy-pubescent (sometimes gla- 
brous); empty cells as thick as the oblong-ovate fertile one or thicker, a broad shal- 
low groove between them. (Ledia radiata Mx.)—An Atlantic species extending into 
Texas. 
3. V. stenocarpa Krok. Fruit oblong-tetragonal, commonly glabrous; oblong 
fertile cell thicker than the linear-oblong approximate empty ones. (’edia stenocarpa 
Engelm.)—Eastern and southern Texas, 
* * * Fertile cell much the narrowest, dorsally 1-nerved: cross-section roundish, 
4, V. Woodsiana Walp. Fruit 2 mm, long or more: fertile cell ovate, tipped 
with a tooth; empty ones inflated, with oblong depression (sometimes an open 
cavity in the middle). (Jedia Woodsiana T, & G,)—An Atlantic species extending 
into Texas. 
COMPOSITA. (COMPOSITE FAMILY.) 
Flowers in a close head on a common receptacle, surrounded by an 
involucre, with 5 (rarely 4) stamens inserted on the corolla with 
their anthers united into a tube, calyx-tube united with the 1-celled 
ovary (the limb, called a pappus, crowning its summit in the form of 
bristles, awns, scales, teeth, etc., or cup-shaped, or even entirely absent), 
corolla either strap-shaped or tubular (in the latter chiefly 5-lobed), 
style mostly 2-cleft at apex, and fruit dry and seed-like (an achene) con- 
taining a single erect seed.—The largest order of Phanerogams, with 
the following special terms: ligule, the strap-shaped limb of certain 
corollas, the flowers being then called ligulate flowers; rays or ray- 
flowers are marginal ones that are ligulate, and such a head is said to 
be radiate; the disk is composed of the tubular flowers, and a head with 
only tubular flowers (there being no ray-flowers) is said to be discoid; 
ahead is homogamous when the flowers are all alike in sex, heteroga- 
mous when they are unlike; the scales are the leaves of the involucre; 
chaff is a name applied to the bracts which often grow on the recepta- 
cle among the flowers, and when these are wanting the receptacle is 
said to be naked.—A very large and difficult family, the study of which 
requires ripe fruiting specimens. 
Series I. TUBULIFLORA, Corolla tubular in all the perfect flowers, 
ligulate only in the marginal or ray flowers, which when present are 
either pistillate only or neutral. 
Tribe I. VERNONIACE. Headsdiscoid; the flowers all alike, perfect and tubular, 
never yellow: style-branches elongated filiform-subulate, hispidulous throughout: 
leaves alternate or scattered. 
1. Blephantopus. Heads 3 to 5-flowered, several crowded together into a com- 
pound head: involucre of 8 scales: pappus of several chafty bristles. 
