167 
Senecio douglassii DC. Prodr. vi, 429 (1837). 
In the sand hills: South Dismal River, August 12; Plummer Ford, August 23; 
northwest of Whitman, September 19 (No. 1677). 
Carduus altissimus L. Sp. PI. ii, 824 (1753). 
Not very common, though abundaut in eastern Nebraska. South Dismal River, 
August 12 (No. 1685). No. 1724 is a form approaching the variety discolor (Muhl.) 
Gray, Syn. Fl. i, pt. ii, 404 (1884). Plummer Ford, August 22, 
Carduus plattensis sp. nov.; Cnicus hookerianus var., Gray Pac. R. Rep. xxi, 45, 
and Cnicus pitcheri Gray, Syn. FI. i, pt. ii, 403, as to Suckley’s Dakota plant. 
Generally 5 to 7 dm. high, white-tomentose especially on the lower surface of the 
leaves; the lower leaves 2 dm. long, deeply pinnately divided into oblong divisions 
3 to5 em. long and 0.5 to 1 em. wide, tipped with a slender, short spine and spar- 
ingly spinosely toothed; the upper shorter and more spinose; head hemispherical, 
about 4 to 5 em. high; bracts ovate-lanceolate, the outer very thick and dark from 
the broad glandular spot, tipped with a weak, spreading, more or less triangular- 
flattened spine; the inner narrower, spineless, with a more or less elongated, erose 
tip or appendage; corollas apparently always ochroleucous, limb obliquely divided 
into long, linear lobes. (Plate I.) 
The head is much like that of C. pitcheri, but the inner bracts have more tendency 
to be elongated and erose, The main difference is in the leaves, the lobes of which 
in C. plattensis are scarcely half as long but more than twice as wide as in C. 
pitcheri. From C, undulatus, it differs in the broader heads, the ochroleucous flowers, 
the form of the bracts, especially the inner ones, the deep-orange taproot and, 
in the typical form,' the less spiny leaves, the lobes of which have a tendency 
to be more rounded at the end and cuspidately spinose-tipped. 
In the Gray Herbarium, there is only one specimen, viz, that of Suckley from 
“L’ Eau qui Court,” Dakota, Undoubtedly Dr. Gray saw the difference between this 
and C. pitcheri, but did not think it advisable to describe it as new from a single 
specimen. 
C. plattensis is common in the sand-hill region of Nebraska. The following speci- 
mens are in the Herbarium of the University of Nebraska: 
No. 213, Rydberg, Kearney County, Nebr., June 15, 1891, and Scott’s Bluff County, 
July 24, 1891; No. 64 (in part), J. G. Smith and Roscoe Pound, Boxbutte County, 
Nebr., July 7, 1892, and the specimens of this collection,.No. 1356, Thedford, June 17, 
and Plummer Ford, July 5. (Type specimen from which the plate is drawn is from 
the latter place and preserved in my own herbarium.) 
Lygodesmia juncea (Pursh) Don, Edinb. N. Phil. Journ. January-March, 1829, 
311; Prenanthes juncea Pursh, F1. ii, 498 (1814). 
Dismal River, June 27; Mullen, July 17 (No. 1432). 
Lygodesmia rostrata (Gray) Gray, Proc. Amer, Acad. ix, 217 (1874); LZ. juncea 
rostrata Gray, Proc. Acad. Phila. 1863, 69 (1863). 
‘A form evidently belonging to the same species, but of somewhat different habit, 
is also growing in Nebraska. It may be known as variety spinosior. It is like the 
species, but the lobes of the leaves are short, broad, and more spiny, resembling 
somewhat those of C, undulatus, the heads generally smaller and the bracts darker. 
Two specimens of this form are in the Gray Herbarium: one with larger heads, 
No. 73, Fendler, collected near Fort Kearney, July, 1849, is referred to Cnicus undula. 
tus; the other with smaller heads, collected in the sand hills of the Upper Platte by 
Dr. Hayden, is placed with Cn. undulatus canescens. It is, however, scarcely Cirsium 
canescens Nutt., as the root is not ‘creeping as in arvense” nor are the flowers “pale 
rose,” 
In the Herbarium of the University of Nebraska, there are two specimens, both 
from the State: No. 64 (in part), J. G. Smith and Roscoe Pound, Boxbutte County, 
July 7, 1892; No. 2964, Fred Clements, Paddock, Holt County, July 25, 1893. 
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