COMPOSITE FAMILY. 179 



61. COMPOSITE, COMPOSITE FAMILY. 



Herbs, or a very few shrubs, known at once by the " compound 

 flower," as it was termed by the older botanists, this consisting of 

 several or many flowers in a head, surrounded by a set of bracts 

 (formerly likened to a calyx) forming an involucre, the stamens as 

 many as the lobes of the corolla (almost always 5) and inserted on 

 its tube, their anthers synyenesious, i. e. united in a ring or tube 

 through which the style passes. Calyx with its tube incorporated 

 with the surface of the ovary, its limb or border (named the pappus} 

 consisting of bristles, either rigid or downy, or of teeth, awns, scales, 

 &c., or of a cup or crown, or often none at all. Corollas either 

 tubular, funnel-form, &c. and lobed, or strap-shaped (ligulate), or 

 sometimes both sorts in the same head, when the outermost or mar- 

 ginal row has the strap-shaped corollas, forming rays (which an- 

 swered to the corolla of the supposed compound flower), the separate 

 flowers therefore called ray-flowers ; those of the rest of the head, or 

 disk, called disk-flowers. The end of the stalk or branch upon 

 which the flowers are borne is called the receptacle. The bracts, if 

 there are any, on the receptacle (one behind each flower) are called 

 the chaff of the receptacle ; the bracts or leaves of the involucre 

 outside the flowers are commonly called scales. Style 2-cleft at 

 the apex. Ovary 1-celled, containing a single ovule, erect from 

 its base, in fruit becoming an akene. Seed filled by the embryo 

 alone. For the flowers and fruit, and the particular terms used in 

 describing them, see Lessons, p. 106-108, fig. 219-221, p. 112, 

 fig. 229, 230 ; p. 130, fig. 291 - 296. 



The largest family of Flowering Plants, generally too difficult for 

 the beginner ; but most of the common kinds, both wild and culti- 

 vated, are here briefly sketched. For fuller details as to the wild 

 ones, with all the species, the student will consult the Manual, and 

 Chapman's Southern Flora. There are two great divisions which 

 include all the common kinds. 



I. Head with only the outermost flowers strap-shaped, and these 

 never perfect, i. e. they are either pistillate or neutral, always with- 

 out stamens, or else with strap-shaped corollas entirely wanting. 

 Plants destitute of milky or colored juice. 



A. No strap-shaped corollas or true rays. 



1. Thistles or Thistle-like, the heads with very many flowers, all alike and mostly 

 perfect. Branches of the style short or united, even to the tip. Scales of the 

 inwlucre many-ranked, these or the leaves commonly tipptd with prickly or 

 bristly points. 



* Pappus of many long-plumed bristles: receptacle with bristles between the flowers. 



1. CYNARA. Scales of the involucre of the great heads thickened and fleshy 



towards the base, commonly notched at the end, with or without a prickle. 

 Akenes slightly ribbed. Otherwise much as in the next. 



2. CIRSIUM. Scales of the involucre not fleshy-thickened, prickly-tipped or 



else merely pointed. Akenes flattish, not ribbed. Filaments of the stamens 

 separate. 



