SYNGENESIA. JE^UALIS. 131 



This vast g-enus, containing more than 100 species, is 

 almost exclusively indigenous to Europe; a few species 

 exist in Barbary, Egypt, Persia, Siberia and the L,evant, 

 there is also 1 doubtful species in India; Carduus appears 

 properly to be confined to the temperate regions of the 

 northern hemisphere. 



539. LIATRIS. Schreber. 



Calix oblong, imbricate. Receptacle naked. 

 Fappus plumose, persistent, (often coloured). 

 Anthers entire at the base. Seed pubescent, stri- 

 ate, and inversely conic. 



Herbaceous perennials; roots tuberous or fibrous; 

 leaves alternate, perfectly entire, often narrow, glandu- 

 lariy punctate; flowers spiked, or subcorymbose, purple; 

 calix 5, 10, or 20-flowered — (Stvle bifid, exserted; seed 

 minutely stipitate at the base, striate, striae about 10; in- 

 tegument of the seed multivalvular.) 



§ I. Floxvers spiked, roots tiibevous. 



Species. 1. L. spicata. Calix about 10-flowered. 2. 

 pycnostachya 3. gramini folia. 4. cylindracea. 



5. * tenuifolia. Slender and every where smooth; leaves 

 filiformly-linear, very long and crowded, diminishing up- 

 wards into short bractes; raceme verj' long; peduncles 

 filiform, and squamose; calix oblong, mostly 5-flowered, 

 scales oblong- and mucronulate. Hab. In the sandy fo- 

 rests of North and South Carolina. Tuber scarcely as 

 large as a walnut. Stem simple, 2 to 3 or 4 feet high, 

 and as well as the leaves smooth. Leaves almost like 

 those of Pinus paliistris, but flat and linear, near a span 

 long at the root, where they are circularly crowded, and 

 no broader than an ordinary sowing thread, gradually di- 

 minishing upwards, they become at length scarcely an 

 inch long, and are, after the manner of the genus, covered 

 with i.npressed pimctures. Raceme from 1 to 2 feet long; 

 peduncles nearly an inch. Florets purple, internally 

 smootft, externally scattered, as usual, with brilliant resi- 

 nous atoms. Pappus plumose, scarcely longer than the 

 villous seed. A very singular and elegant species- 



6. heterophylla. Calix 8 to 10-flowered. 7. nspera. 8. 

 pilosa, /3. graciU.<!. L. gracilis. Ph. 2. p. 508. This plant, 

 with ^vhich I am acquainted, appears to be merely a 

 smoother variety of L. pilosa, but even this plant has a pu- 

 bescent stem. Calix 8 to 10-flowered. 



9. * retinosa. Glabrous; leaves linear and crpwded; 

 flowers spiked, closely sessile; calix oblong, 4 and 5- 



