STOKESIA CYANEA. 

 BLUE STOKESIA. 



NATURAL ORDER, COMPOSIT.E. (Asterace/E of Lindley.) 



STOKESIA CYANEA, L'Heritier. — Flowers all tubular, the marginal larger, ray-like, irregular ; 

 scales o£ Ihe involucre imbricated, in several rows, the outer spinulous and leaf-like ; 

 receptacle naked; fruit four-angled; pappus of four or five awn-like, rigid, deciduous 

 scales. Perennial ; erect, with a downy stem ; leaves alternate, sessile, entire, glabrous, 

 the bracts spinulous at base, gradually passing into the scales; showy blue (lowers in ter- 

 minal large heads, outer corollas with the inner cleft deeper, limb spreading, palmate, 

 imitating rays. (Wood's Class-Book of Botany. See also Chapman's Flora of the South- 

 ern United States.) 



HE plant represented on the accompanying plate is more 

 than usually instructive, as its structural features, its 

 morphological characters, its geographical relations, and its flori- 

 cultural capacities are all so interesting as to make them worthy 

 of the special attention of the student. 



The structural features of the Siokesia cyanea are well calcu- 

 lated to show how artificial the so-called " natural system " of 

 botany still is. In the order Composita:., to which our plant 

 belongs, the best arrangement is supposed to be that which 

 divides the families according to the shape of the florets, and 

 the two main divisions, therefore, are Tubidiflorcs, with tubular 

 florets, and Ligulijlora:, with the florets strap-shaped. The Sto- 

 kcsia has been placed among TuhiliJJorcs because the lower por- 

 tion of its corolla is tubular; yet the upper portion (see Fig. 2) 

 is so decidedly strap-sha|)ed that the most " natural " position 

 of the genus would seem to be among Ligulijiorcs. We see, 

 therefore, on what seemingly uncertain grounds some of the 

 divisions of our system are based; and that a little more or less 

 of cohesion in the leaves of the corolla may be reason sufficient 



