174 ORDER FRUSTRANEA. 



States is that of Coreopsis, or Tick-seed Sunflower, 

 which has a double calyx ; each of many leaves, the 

 exterior shorter and green, the interior equal, partly 

 coriaceous, and coloured. The receptacle producing 

 flat, chaffy scales. The seeds compressed, emargi- 

 nate, and often bidentate. Some of the species are culti- 

 vated in gardens, and have yellow flowers. Most of 

 them belong to the milder latitudes, but they are all pe- 

 culiar to America. In the open swamps of New Jersey 

 there is a low, narrow leaved species with rose colored 

 flowers ; but the most beautiful, yet known, is the C. 

 tinctoria, an annual or biennial, originally from Arkansa 

 territory, but now common in most gardens ; its radical 

 leaves are bipinnately divided, those of the stem pinnated 

 in narrow segments ; the flowers come out in May, 

 and are of a fine orange yellow, with a brown centre. 

 It gives a reddish yellow, indellible stain to cotton, 

 and, as well as the C. senifolia, might be employed 

 for dying. 



The Blue Bottle of our gardens, originally from the 

 corn-fields of Europe, belongs to a remarkable genus, 

 of great extent in species called Centaurea, of which, 

 as yet, but a single one, has been discovered in 

 either continent of America. In all, the corollas or 

 florets of the ray are funnel-form or tubular, longer 

 than those of the disc, and irregular; the pappus is 

 simple, and the receptacle bristly. The genus is nat- 

 urally divisible into sections or subgenera, principally, 

 from the nature of the calyx. In the Blue Bottle 

 ( Centaurea Cyanus) the scales of the calyx are with- 

 out either armature or appendages ; the leaves are 

 linear and entire, but below often broader and divided. 

 The flowers, though originally blue, in gardens, pre- 

 sent varieties with white, brown, and particolored rays. 

 But the largest flowered species of the genus, is, per- 

 haps, the solitary one of the United States, now culti- 



