GAILLARDIA AMBLYODON. BLUNT-TOOTH BLANKETFLOWER. 1 8 



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is an evil to multiply synonyms. The somewhat differently 

 colored species, commonly grown in English gardens is popu- 

 larly known as the Golden Fleece, and this name, taken in 

 connection with the American name, which certainly seems odd 

 enough at first sight, may afford a key to the meaning of both. 

 There is a certain relationship between the Golden Fleece and 

 a blanket, both of them being woolly, and it is evident, there- 

 fore, that the people of the wild Texan prairies, as well as the 

 owners of the English gardens, were forcibly struck by the thick, 

 woolly texture of the ray petals of our flower, and that they 

 strove to express this character in the popular name. 



The Gaillardia amblyodon is generally looked upon as a very 

 beautiful flower; but it seems to us that it can hardly be called 

 beautiful, in the strict sense of the term, although it is certainly 

 gay and showy enough. The scalloped edges of the corolla are 

 too irregularly toothed to harmonize well with the general cir- 

 cular outline of the flower, and they are therefore rather a draw- 

 back than an aid to its beauty. The color of the petals is, no 

 doubt, beautiful in itself, but there is too much of it. As a mere 

 matter of beauty in lines and proportion, the mass of tapering 

 involucral scales, surmounted by the globular head of half- 

 matured achenes, filled with minute detail (see Fig. i), is a far 

 more artistic study than the flower itself. 



The involucral scales just alluded to are very interesting, 

 morphologically considered. The large number of these scales 

 implies the transformation of many series of verticils of normal 

 leaves in the production of one complete involucre, and it is 

 curious to note that they have all retained very nearly the same 

 size and texture, — an occurrence which it is by no means com- 

 mon to find among composite plants. The leaves have also 

 managed to preserve a comparatively uniform character in their 

 advance along the stem towards the point where they were 

 finally changed to involucral scales, and the two facts, consid- 

 ered together, are evidence of the suddenness of the change. 



The Blunt-Toothed Blanketflower, like some of the other 



