276 COMPOSITE. Helianthus. 



H. mollis, LAM. Canescent throughout : stems 2 or 3 feet high, very leafy, when young 

 villous, iu age often hirsute or hispid, simple ami with solitary or few rather large heads, or 

 branched above and more floriferous : leaves ovate-lanceolate or ovate with a cordate closely 

 sessile or a clasping base, attenuate-acute or acuminate, 3 to 5 inches long, whitened with a 

 soft pubescence, or the upper face becoming greeuer and scabrous : involucre two-thirds inch 

 high, villous or sericeous: rays 15 to 25, an inch or more long. Diet. iii. 85 (1789) ; DC. 

 Prodr. v. 587; Torr. & Gray, 1. c., not Willd., &c. H. cuncsccns, Michx. Fl. ii. 140. 

 H. pubescens, Vahl, Symb. ii" 92 (1791); Willd. Spec. iii. 2240; Ell. Sk. ii. 41S ; Hook. 

 Comp. Bot. Mag. i. 98. Dry barrens, Ohio to Iowa and south to W. Georgia and Texas. 

 Well-marked species, but passes into a greener or less pubescent and somewhat scabrous 

 variety. 



i H Soft-villous rather than tomentose (varying to merely pubescent) as to the lower face of 

 the mostly alternate ample leaves, but the tall stem villous hirsute or even hispid : heads rather 

 large: involucre loose aud long: disk grayish: the corolla-lobes as well as the tips of the chaff 

 externally hirsute ! 



H. tomentosus, MICHX. Stems stout, 4 to 9 feet high, branching : leaves thiuuish, ample 

 (the larger cauline a foot long), from ovate to oblong-lanceolate, acuminate at both ends, 

 mostly somewhat petioled, sparingly serrate, upper face scabrous : heads nearly inch high 

 and broad: bracts of the involucre linear-lanceolate and long-attenuate into almost filiform 

 tips, externally hirsute, especially the margins, squarrose-spreading, often much surpassing 

 the disk, outermost sometimes large and foliaceous : rays pale yellow, an inch or more long. 

 -Fl. ii. 141 ; Ell. Sk. ii. 424 ; Torr. & Gray, 1. c. //. pulx-scens, Bot. Eeg. t. 524, but not that 

 of Ilort. Kew., &e. H. squarrosus, Nutt. Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. vii. 3(17. //. spathulatns, 

 Ell. Sk. ii. 421, a form with mostly opposite leaves and less prolonged involucral bracts. 

 Moist woods, Illinois ? and Virginia to Georgia and Alabama, most common along the 

 mountains, in the lower country with leaves less pubescent beneath. 



-1 -i -) Leaves mostly scabrous both sides (in one sometimes soft tomentose-canescent beneath), 

 the upper disposed to be alternate and not triplinerved, mostly petiolate and not broad: heads 

 middle-sized. 



-H- Atlantic species: involucre loose or squarrose; its bracts linear-subulate or gradually attenuate 

 from a narrowish base to a slender point, all nearly of the same length, equalling or surpassing 

 the dull yellow disk: all producing slender creeping rootstocks and also forming one or more 

 fleshy thickened roots (like tap-roots) at base of stem. 



H. grosse-serratus, HASTENS. Stem very smooth and glabrous, commonly glaucous, 6 to 

 10 feet high, bearing numerous rather cymosely disposed and short-peduncled heads : leaves 

 (not rarely some even of the uppermost opposite) slender-petioled, thiunish, oblong-lanceolate 

 or narrower, or some of the cauline almost deltoid-lanceolate, gradually acuminate, sharply 

 serrate (sometimes with long salient teeth), or upper merely denticulate, slightly scabrous 

 above, whitish and minutely tomeutulose or soft-puberuleut beneath ; larger cauline com- 

 monly 8 to 10 inches and the petiole an inch or two long: heads fully half-inch high, and 

 deep yellow oblong rays over an inch long : bracts of the involucre mostly slender. Sel. 

 Sem. Hort. Lovan., & Linn. xiv. Suppl. 133; Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 326. Dry plains and 

 prairies, Ohio to Dakota, Missouri, and Texas. Eastward the smaller-leaved forms seem to 

 pass into //. ynjantcns. 



Var. hypoleUGUS. Leaves almost silvery -canescent with fine and dense soft tomen- 

 tum, the larger with either cuneate or truncate base. Texas, Drummond, Lindhcimer, 

 Writ/ht. (Var. y, Torr. & Gray, in part.) 



H. giganteus, L. Stem hispidulous or scabrous, or below smooth, 3 to 10 feet high, com- 

 monly one or more of the roots becoming thick and tuber-like ; the larger plants brandling 

 above, bearing scattered heads: leaves lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, green and more or 

 less scabrous both sides, tapering to base and summit, short-petioled or subsessile, minutely 

 serrate or denticulate, occasionally nearly entire, commonly only 3 to 5 inches long : heads 

 of the preceding or smaller : rays pale yellow, barely inch long. Spec. ii. 905 ; Ait. Kew. 

 iii. 249; Willd. Spec. iii. 2242; DC. 1. c. ; Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 325, excl. . H. altissiinus, 

 L. Spec. ed. 2, ii. 1278 ; Jacq. Hort. Vinci, t. lf,2. H. f/ir/as, Michx. Fl. ii. 141. A low and 

 mainly northern form is H. tuberosus, Parry in Owen Rep. Minnesota Surv. 614, and //. sub- 

 tnbcroms, Bourgeau in herb. Hook., " the Indian Potato of the Assiniboine tribe," the so-called 

 "edible tubers" (which were also long ago noted by Douglas) being tuber-like thickened 



