550 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



= = Involucral scales oblong, obtusish. 

 a. Rays 7 to 8 mm. long. 



54. V. oreopola. Shrub with short internodes and pale buff cortex : 

 branchlets pubescent with fine white soft sub-appressed hairs : leaves nar- 

 rowly lance-oblong, subentire or remotely serrulate, attenuate at the apex, 

 narrowed to a sessile somewhat biauriculate base, green, puberulent, and 

 slightly scabrous above, canescent-tomentose or merely pubescent and 

 scarcely paler beneath, 5 to 15 cm. long, 1 to 2.5 cm. broad: heads (7 to 

 10 mm. in diameter exclusive of rays) 14 to 20 in a compound flat-topped 

 corymb: rays 10 to 12, oblong, yellow : bracts of the inflorescence linear- 

 oblong, acute ; involucral scales oblong, obtusish, soft-pubescent and cili- 

 ate ; chaff stramineous, abruptly contracted to a straight erect mucro : 

 body of the achene black, puberulent, obovate ; wings relatively broad, 

 divergent at the summit ; awns of the pappus 2, slender, two thirds as 

 long as the body of the achene. — Collected in mountains about San Luis 

 Potosi, August, 1876, Schajfner, no. 344; Parry &, Palmer, no. 457 

 (1878). Incorrectly referred to V. persicifolia and V. salicifolia 

 {= V. virgata). 



b. Rays broadly oblong, 3-dentate, 3 nmi. long. 



55. V. guatemalensis. Stems striate, wingless, alternately branched, 

 sparingly pubescent: leaves alternate, lance-oblong, acute, subentire, gla- 

 brate and buUate above, somewhat paler and canescent with fine close 

 appressed pubescence beneath, 7 to 10 cm. long, 1 to 2 cm. broad, nar- 

 rowed below to a biauriculate subamplexicaul base, not decurrent upon 

 the stem: inflorescence at first loosely but above fastigiately much- 

 branched, sordid-pubescent : heads numerous, in fruit 7 to 9 mm. in di- 

 ameter : rays very short, 3-dentate, little exserted, probably yellow : 

 achenes obovate, broadly and equally winged ; wings rounded at the apex ; 

 body 5 mm. long, tuberculate especially along the prominent miduerve : 

 pappus-awns 2, long, slender, equal. — V. virginica. Coulter in Donnell 

 Smith, Enum. PI. Guat. pt. 4, 8S, not L. — Palin, Depart. Amatitlan, 

 Guatemala, altitude 1,100 m., February, 1892, J. Donnell Smith, no. 



2860. 



* * Leaves more or less decurrent upon the stem. 



•f- Involucral scales narrow, linear : pales villous near the summit. 



•w. Leaves sparsely pubescent or at length glabrate beneath : Central American. 



56. V. FALLENS, Benth. in Oersted, Vidensk. Meddel. 1852, p. 97; 

 Hemsl. 1. c. 189. — Nicaragua, on the western slopes of the volcano El 

 Viejo, Oersted. 



