175 
+ ++ Achenes flat or flattish: pappus white, fine and soft: involucre imbricated: 
leafy-stemmed, with panicled heads. 
126. Lactuca. Achenes more or less beaked: flowers yellow or purplish, 
127. Sonchus. Achenes flattish, not at all beaked: flowers yellow, 
1. BLEPHANTOPUS L. (ELEPHANT’s FOOT.) 
Perennials, with alternate leaves, purplish flowers, discoid 2 to 5- 
flowered heads several together clustered into a compound pedunculate 
head, perfect flowers, narrow involucre of 8 oblong dry bracts, 10-ribbed 
achenes, and pappus of stout bristles chaffy-dilated at base. 
1, B. Carolinianus Willd. Somewhat hairy, corymbose, leafy: leaves ovate-ob- 
long, thin, upper and basal leaves much alike.—An Atlantic species, extending into 
Texas. 
2. VERNONIA Schreb, (IRON-WEED.) 
Perennial herbs, with leafy stems, alternate and acuminate or very 
acute leaves, mostly purple flowers, discoid 15 to many-flowered heads 
in corymbose cymes, perfect flowers, much imbricated involucre, naked 
receptacle, cylindrical ribbed achenes, and a double pappus (the outer 
of minute scale-like bristles, the inner of copious capillary bristles). 
* Leaves narrowly linear, without revolute margins, glabrous, veinless, mostly entire. 
1, V. Jamesii Torr. and Gray. Low, nearly glabrous: heads few-flowered: invo- 
lucral bracts obtuse or acute.—Extending from the northern plains into western 
Texas. 
** Leaves slightly or not at all scabrous, without revolute margins, mostly sharply denticu- 
late or rigidly serrate, linear-lanceolate to oblong-ovate, veiny. 
2. V. fasciculata. Michx. Leaves linear to oblong-lanceolate: heads many, 
crowded: involucral bracts close, obtuse or the uppermost mucronate: achenes 
smooth.—A species of the Mississippi Valley, extending into Texas at least as far 
west as Gillespie County. 
3. V. altissima Nutt. Usually tall: leaves lanceolate or lance-oblong: cyme 
loose: involucral bracts close, obtuse or mucronate; achenes hispidulous on the ribs, — 
An Atlantic and Gulf species, extending into Texas as var, GRANDIFLORA Nutt., with 
large heads, and the involucre of 35 te 40 bracts in many ranks. 
4. V. Baldwinii Torr. Tomentulose: heads small, at first globose: leaves lance- 
oblong or lance-ovate: involucre hoa@y-tomentose, greenish, squarrose, the bracts 
acute or acuminate: achenes hispidulous on the ribs.—Prairies and barren hills, from 
western Texas to eastern Missouri. 
** * Leaves with upper face scabrous and margins often revolute (then entire), not 
canescent, 
5. V. angustifolia Michx. Slender, from roughish-hirsute to nearly glabrous: 
leaves from narrowly linear (or almost filiform) to lanceolate, the broader ones 
sparsely denticulate and veiny: cyme loose: involucral bracts (or most of them) 
mucronate, sometimes cuspidate-acuminate: achenes minutely hirsute, at least on 
the ribs.—A Gulf species of the pine barrens, extending into Texas. Var. TEXANA 
Gray has the lower leaves large and lanceolate, the upper ones small and linear or 
subulate, and the involucral bracts all pointless or merely mucronate,—Extends 
into western Texas, 
