HELTANTHUS MAXIMILIANI. 



MAXIMILIAN'S SUNFLOWER. 



NATURAL ORDER, COMPOSIT.Ti. (ASTKRACK.K OF I.INDLEV.) 



Helianthus Maximii.iani, Schrader. — Catiline leaves opposite, those of the branchlets 

 alternate, lanceolate, sub-serrate, scabrous, often narrowed into a short petiole ; involu- 

 cral scales lanceolate-linear, acuminate, somewhat hispid. (De Candolle's Prodromtis 

 Systcmatis Naturalis Regni X-cgctabilh, Part VII. See also Torrey and Gray's Flora 

 of North America, Vol. II.) 



|eLIANTHUS is the Sunflower, and the species to 

 which this chapter is devoted was named IlcUantlms 

 Maximiliaiii — in lionor of Prince Maximihan von Wied- 

 Ncuwicd — by Henry Adolph Schrader, a very industrious 

 botanist of Gottingen, who flourished in the earhcr part of 

 this century. Prince Maximilian was a naturalist of distinction, 

 and travelled extensively in America, visiting Brazil in iS 15-17, 

 and the United States some years later. The results of his 

 researches he gave to the world in a series of magnificent 

 volumes, two of which, accompanied by an atlas, and published 

 at Coblenz in 183S-43, are devoted to his "Journey Through 

 North America," by which title they are known. It was while 

 travelling in Missouri that the prince, according to De Can- 

 dolle, discovered the flower afterwards named for him. 



Our species does not seem to be very well known to Ameri- 

 can botanists, as it is seldom recorded as having been met with. 

 It is not mentioned by any of the writers who treat of the 

 botany of the country lying east of the Missouri and Mississippi 

 Rivers, and it is probably confined to the hot and dry regions 

 extending west of the Mississippi. Prince Maximilian, De Can- 



