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CENTAUREA piilcra. 

 Beautiful Blue Bottle. 



SYNGENESIA POLYGAMIA. 

 Nat. ord. Cynarace^, seu Composit^-Cynare^, DC. 

 CENTAUREA. L. 



Ser. III. Cyane^e. Squamarum involucri mediarum appendix plus 

 minus scariosa secus squamam decurrens, rarius in spinam simplicem desinens. 



Sect. XV. Cyanxjs. Invelucri ovati aut subglobosi squamae margine 

 usque ad apicem serrato-membranaceo ciliato cinctse. Cor. radii discum su- 



perantes. Stigmata libera. Pappus duplex, mediocris aut brevis. 



Capitula non bracteata. DC. prodr. \\i. 578. 



C.pulcra; caule ramoso foliisque uniformiter albido-tomentosis, foliis lato- 

 linearibus subsessiUbus amplexicaulibusque basi rotundatis apice acutis 

 integerrimis aut hinc inde denticulatis, fructus pappo duplici: ext. paleis 

 linearibus vix acutis regulariter imbricatis et successive longioribus 

 achaenii longitudinem sequantibus, interiore pauciseto. DC. prodr. I. c. 

 no. 66. paucis mutatis. 



The garden of the Horticultural Society owes this 

 pretty annual to Dr. Hugh Falconer, superintendent of the 

 Botanical Garden, Saharunpur ; but whether or not it is a 

 native of the North of India is not clear. According to 

 DeCandolle it was found by Wight and Royle cultivated in 

 gardens j but the latter author adds, in his *' Illustrations of 

 the Botany of the Himalayan Mountains," that he had re- 

 ceived it only from Cashmere, whence he supposes it to have 

 been introduced into the gardens of the Indian peninsula. 



With us it is a beautiful hardy annual, in general appear- 

 ance resembling the queen of our wild flowers, the Centaurea 

 cyanus of corn-fields ; but it is much more woolly, dwarfer, 

 a good deal branched, with shorter radial florets, and the 

 pappus of its fruit is long, discoloured, very unequal, and at 

 least as long as the seed-vessel itself. In its manner of growth 

 it bears more resemblance to C. depressa, of the Crimea and 



