88 COMPOSITE. Stokesia, 



TRIBE I. VERNONIACE^E, p. 50. 



1. STOKESIA, L'Her. (Jonathan Stokes, a British botanist, coadjutor of 

 Withering: some say Dr. Wm. Stokes of Dublin.) A most peculiar genus, of a 

 single species, of local habitat ; a perennial, flowering in early summer ; the 

 hirge and showy head of flowers having considerable resemblance to that of a 

 China Aster. Benth. & Hook. Gen. ii. 234. 



S. cyanea, L'HEn. A foot high : stem stout, at first floccose-lanate ; the few branches 

 terminated by solitary heads: leaves glabrous, bright green, puncticulate, thickish; radical 

 and lower cauline entire, oblong-lanceolate, tapering into a margined petiole ; upper be- 

 coming ovate -lanceolate, partly clasping, and bearing toward their base some spinulose- 

 aristiform teeth ; some subtending the head and passing into the bracts of the involucre : 

 head, with the radiant marginal corollas (of an inch Ling), 3 inches in diameter: flowers 

 bright purplish-blue. L'Her. Sert. Angl. 27; Ait. Kew. ed. 2, iv. 491 ; Torr. & Gray, Fl. 

 ii. 60; Hook. Bot. Mag. t. 496G ; Meehan, Nat. Flowers, ii. t. 13. Carthamus Icccis, Hill, 

 Hort. Kew. 57, t. 5. Cartesia centauroides, Cass. Bull. Philoin. 1816. Centaurea Americana, 

 Hook. Comp. Bot. Mag. i. 48, by mistake. Moist ground, in the low country, from south- 

 western part of S. Carolina to E. Louisiana : rare. 



2. ELEPHANTOPUS, Vaill., L. (Greek for Elephant's foot, which is 

 a translation of a Malabarian name of the original species.) -- Perennial herbs, of 

 warm regions, extending northward almost through the Atlantic U. S. ; with un- 

 divided pinnately-veined leaves and usually bluish-purple flowers. Benth. & Hook. 

 Gen. ii. 237. Elephantopus, Elephantosis, & Distreptus (Cass.), Less., DC. 

 Our species all belong to the typical section of the genus ; with stem dichoto- 

 mously branching ; heads capitately glomerate at the summit of pedunculiform 

 branches, the compound glomerule involucrate by two or three cordate and 

 closely sessile bracteiform leaves ; and simple pappus of about 5 awns or rigid 

 bristles, with chaffy-dilated base : fl. late summer. Of the nearly related species 

 (with glabrous corolla) E. scaber belongs to the extra- American and E. mollis to 

 the American tropics. Schultz Bip., in Lmuaea, xx. 514, too hastily combined all 

 the American species. 



* Stem leafy: upper cauline leaves very similar to the basal. 



E. Carolinianus, WILLD. Rather softly hirsute or pubescent, sometimes 3 feet high : 

 leaves thin, oval-obovate or ovate, crenate or repand-dentate, not rugose, nor prominently 

 veined (the larger 4 to 8 inches long and 2 to 4 wide) ; uppermost oblong: chaffy base of 

 awns of the pappus decidedly longer thau the diameter of the akene, lanceolate-subulate and 

 very gradually attenuate into the awn. Spec. iii. 2390 (excl. syn.); Xutt. Gen. ii. 187; 

 Ell. Sk. ii. 480; Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. GO. E. scaixr, Walt. Car. 217, &c , not L. -Dry soil 

 in open woods, Pennsylvania to Illinois, Kansas, Texas, and Florida. 



* * Stem usually naked and scapiform: its few leaves small and bract-like; principal leaves 

 radical and flat on the ground. 



E. tomentosus, L. Somewhat cauescently hirsute and villous ; leaves silky-villous beneath 

 (rather than tomentose), varying from obovate or rarely oval to narrowly-spatulate ; veins of 

 the lower surface prominent : scapiform stem a foot or two high : involucre of the large 

 glomerules rigid : pappus-scales about the length of the breadth of the akene, triangular- 

 subulate, attenuate into the bristle. Spec. ii. 814, & ed. 2, excl. syn. Browne ; Torr. & Gray, 

 Fl. 1. c. E. Carolinianus, var. simplex, Nutt. Gen. ii. 187. E.nudicaulis, Ell. Sk. ii. 481. 

 E. elatus, Bertol. Misc. xi. 21, t. 5. Virginia and Kentucky to Florida and Louisiana. 



E. nudatus, GRAY. Minutely strigose-pubescent : leaves membrauaceous, green, at most 

 somewhat hirsute beneath, from spatnlate-obovate to oblanceolate, not prominently veined : 

 glomerules smaller : pappus-scales very short, broadly deltoid, abruptly terminated by the 



