COMPOSITE FAMILY 227 



or is hidden on a dark day, the heads bend downward. It 

 is more common in central Florida than in the extreme 

 southern part of the peninsula. 



A bright composite common in sandy soil in autumn, 

 Actinospermum, of bushy growth, a foot or two in height, 

 crowns its slender branches with large golden heads, which 

 in ripening become hard and honeycombed, so that the 

 silky achenes are held in tiny cavities. 



Goldenrods, Solidago, whose ray-flowers are minute, 

 bloom nearly all the year. The closely allied Euthamia, 

 often abundant on roadsides and near marshes, has a flat- 

 topped, branching growth, with many thread-like leaves, 

 and innumerable flowering-heads. 



Golden asters — species of Chrysopsis of various leaf- 

 forms and habits of growth, and the weedy Heterotheca 

 with strong-scented foliage — bloom through a large part 

 of the year in many places. 



One of the most common of this group is a weed, 

 Spanish needles, Bidens leucantha, whose small heads of 

 yellow disk flowers surrounded by a few broad white rays 

 bloom all the year. A cosmopolitan traveler in the warmer 

 countries of the earth, it grows on roadsides and in culti- 

 vated grounds, where its success in establishing itself 

 is due in part to its ability to compel man's unwilling aid 

 in distributing its seeds. No trusting this harvest to 

 the capricious wind ! Barbed prongs on the ripe achenes 

 await the passer-by ; he brushes carelessly against the plants 

 and scores of "devil's pitchforks" are in his clothing, ready 

 to travel with him and grow in other places. The golden 

 bur-marigold of this genus, with larger flowering-heads, 

 also blooms all the year, but is found only in wet places, 

 and is not equipped with barbed prongs. 



To this group belongs a prostrate weed, Acanthospermum 

 australe, whose ripening heads show astonishing originality 

 of shape, as the inner bracts become hardened and form a 

 star-shaped cluster, about half an inch across, consisting of 



