260 LXXVII. COMPOSITÆ. (J. D. Hooker.) [ Blumea. 
Trige IV.—INULOIDEJE. 
26. BLUMEA, DC. 
Annual or perennial, glandular pubescent or woolly herbs. Leaves alternate, 
usually toothed or lobed. Heads corymbose panicled or fascicled, rarely ra- 
cemed, heterogamous, disciform, purple rosy or yellow; outer fl. oo -seriate, 9, 
fertile, filiform, 2-3-toothed; disk.-fl. %, few, fertile, tubular, slender, limb 
5-toothed. Jnvolucre ovoid or campanulate; bracts oo -seriate, narrow, acute, 
soft or herbaceous, outer smaller ; receptacle flat, naked. Anther-bases sagittate, 
tails small, slender. Style-arms of Y flattened or almost filiform, rarely con- 
nate with the adjoining anthers. -Achenes small, subterete or angled, ribbed 
or not; pappus l-seriate, slender, often caducous.—Disrrip, Species about 60, 
tropical and subtropical Asiatic, African and Australian. 
This genus is eminently characteristic of India, and the species may be called the 
Groundsels of that country. There is no more unsatisfactory genus than this; it is 
distinguished from Laggera only by the tailed anther-cells, and this is not a very con- 
stant character, the anthers of some states of B. virens having no tails, whilst forms 
of Laggera have them; Kurz, indeed, suggests (with much probability) that some 
Laggeras are sexual forms of Blumeas. Clarke finds generally in Blwmea, that fune- 
tionally 9 heads occur, the disk-flowers, though ¥ in form, having only rudimentary 
stamens, and that in the case of the common B. oryodonía he has never found 
perfect § flowers, nor has Kurz. The divisions of the Genus here proposed are 
most unsatisfactory, and I fear that the specific diagnoses are not much better. The 
glabrous or pubescent receptacle is very difficult to see; the size of the head is 
tolerably constant; the form and number of the invol. bracts are difficult to describe; 
the very minute achenes are tolerably uniform; the foliage is sportive to an extra- 
ordinary degree, as is the pubescence; gland-hairs are common to most species, but 
the amount varies with the dryness of the locality. I have not been able to follow 
Clarke's disposition of the species at all closely, they want a careful study in situ, and 
under cultivation. 
SECT. 1, Heads few, small, 1-4 in. diam., solitary or 2 and peduncled at the 
ends of the branches.—Small, annual herbs, erect or prostrate; flowers yellow. 
l. B. amplectens, DC. in Wight Contrib. 13; Prodr. v. 483; sparsely 
softly hairy or glabrous, divaricate branches spreading from the base, leaves 
3-13 in. j-amplexicaul oblong or obovate obtuse or acute coarsely toothed, heads. 
solitary on the branchlets peduncled 1—À in. diam., invol. bracts very slender 
inner hair-pointed, recept. glabrous, corolla yellow, lobes of 2 hairy, achenes 
oblong, pappus reddish. Clarke Comp. Ind. 71; Dalz. § Gibs. Bomb, Fl. 125; 
Thwaites Enum. 163 partly (C. P. 1730). Conyza amplectens, Wall. Cat. 3096. 
C. obliqua, Willd. Sp. Pl. ii. 1930. C. amplexicaulis, Lamk. Dict, ii. 84, 
Erigeron obliquum, Zann. Mant. 
CreNTRAL Jana and Western PExINSULA; abundant in Bexcar, chiefly near the 
coast and CEYLON. 
The following varieties are aecording to Clarke, they are with difficulty limitable. 
Van. 1. typica; softly hairy or glabrate, leaves oblong toothed. 
Var. 2. arenaria, leaves obovate-oblong sparingly toothed usually more villous 
beneath. B. arenaria, DC. in Wight. Contrib. 13; Prodr. v, 433, Conyza villosa, 
Wall. Cat. 3105. 
Van. 3. pubiflora, leaves toothed, peduncles stout, heads large iin. B. pubiflora, 
DC. Prodr. v. 434. Erigeron asteroides, Wall. Cat. 2975, B.—Extends to Bundelkund 
and N.W. India. 
Van. 4. maritima ; bushy, glabrous, glandular, leaves small, heads large.—Near 
the sea, Andaman Islds., Pegu, Soonderbunds and round the coast to Scinde, 
Van, 5. tenella; almost glabrous. 
