414 COMPOSITiE. ■ StepJmnomeria. 



in California, and Washington Terr. Generally of more northern range than the foregoing, 

 not throughout distinguisliable, perhaps has been rightly combined with it. 

 S. myrioclada, Eaton. Very slender stems and tortuous filiform branches very numerous 

 and fastigiately crowded in an erect tuft, a foot or two high, terminated by scattered small 

 heads : leaves linear and very small : involucre 2 and 3 lines long (of 4 or 5 as well as "3 " 

 narrow bracts) and 3-5-flowered : akenes pluristriate at maturity : pappus wiiite, its bristles 

 naked or merely hirsute below the middle or at the base. — Bot. King Exp. 198, t. 20. — Dry 

 rocky ridges. Thousand Spring and Goose Creek Valleys, Nevada, Watson. Hawthorne, 

 Nevada, M. E. Jones. 



-1— -I— Biennial, or probably perennial with long and slender subterranean shoots: pappus bright 

 white; the bristles long-plumose to base, whicli is not at all paleaceous-dilated. 



S. 'Wrigh.tii, Gray, a foot or two high, slender, with single corymbosely paniculate stems : 

 cauline leaves mostly filiform and entire ; those of tiie radical tuft linear to spatulate and 

 laciniate-pinnatifid : heads nearly half-inch long, 5-flowered, sparse, pedunculate, terminating 

 slender branches : akenes smooth on the salient ribs and narrow intervals, contracted at 

 summit: pappus long-jjlumose. — Proc. Am. Acad. xix. 60. S. riincinata, var., Gray, PI. 

 Wright, ii. 103, no. 1301. — W. Texas, in pebbly bed of Howard's Creek, Wright (without 

 the elongated root or shoot), and adjacent New Mexico, Bitjeloiv. Apparently same from 

 N. Arizona, Rusbi/, seemingly perennial from long and filiform subterranean shoots. 



H— -f^ -)— Annual, strictly erect: pappus white ; the bristles plumose to base, not paleaceous-dilated. 

 S. virgata, Benth. Stem rigid, 1 to 4 feet high : heads 3 or 4 lines long, mostly subsessile 

 or short-peduncled, spicately or thyrsoidly disposed along the naked upper part of virgate 

 stem or similar branches, but sometimes more loosely paniculate on open branchlets : upper 

 leaves linear, small and entire ; lower oblong or spatulate, often sinuate or piunatifid : 

 involucre 4-8-flowered, originally described as " 8-10-flowered ": akenes subclavate or ob- 

 long, rugose-tuberculate between the narrow ribs: pappus moderately plumose. — Bot. 

 Sulph. 32; Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. 1. c. 5. panfcidata, chiefly, Eaton, Bot. King Exp. 198, 

 t. 20, f. 5; Gray, Bot. Calif, i. 428. Possibly (from habitat not improbably) .S. chtta, Nutt. 

 PI. Gamb. 1 73 ; but flowers not blue, and no resinous dots on involucre and branchlets. — 

 California, common from San Bernardino and Sau Diego Co., to Oregon, east to Nevada and 

 Utah. 



H— -1— -t— -)^ Annual, strictly erect: pappus graj'ish or fuscous; its bristles short-plumose nearly 

 or quite to the more or less paleaceous or squamelliferous base. 



S. paniculata, Nutt. Stem erect from an annual root, a foot or two high, bearing numer- 

 ous narrow 3-5-flowered heads in an elongated narrow or more open panicle, or else more 

 strictly disposed on virgate branches : leaves linear or the lower lanceolate : akenes nearly 

 of the preceding: pappus decidedly different. — Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. vii. 428; Torr. & 

 Gray, Fl. ii. 473. — Plaius of Idaho, and probably Northern Nevada, to E. Oregon, Nuttall, 

 Hall, Cusick, &c. 



-1— -t— -)— -I— -)— Annuals or biennials: bristles of the white or whitish pappus plumose above 

 but naked below the middle, at base more or less dilated or abruptly paleaceous, or else with 

 one or two adnate squamella? or bristly teeth at or near insertion: akenes thick-ribbed and 

 tuberculatc-rugose at maturity: stems pauiculatcly and often divergently branched, bearing 

 scattered squaniulose-peduncled heads. — § Ilnmiptilium, Gray, Bot. Calif., in part only. 



S. exigua, Nutt. a foot or two high, with slender branches and branchlets, but stem not 

 rarely robust (therefore ill named from depauperate specimens) : radical and lower cauline 

 leaves piunatifid or bipinnatifid, those of the branches mainly reduced to short scales: invo- 

 lucre 3 to 5 lines long, with commonly 5 flowers, " 3 or 4 " when depauperate, rarely 6 or 8 

 in strong plants : bristles of the paj)pus 9 to 18, their more or less dilated and paleaceous or 

 thickened bases commonly a little connate in 4 or 5 phalanges and often 1-2-setulose on each 

 side. — Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. 1. c. 428; Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 473 (attenuated form) ; I'^aton, 

 Bot. King Exp. 198, t. 20, f. 6, 7 ; Gray, Bot. Calif, i. 428. Ilemiptilium Bif/elocii, Gray, 

 Bot. Mex. Bound. 105, a stout form. — Interior of Wyoming to the Upper Rio Grande on 

 the border of Texas, west to Nevada and E. California. 



S. pentacheeta, Eaton. A span or two or even 2 or 3 feet high, like the preceding, or 

 divaricately branched from the base: pappus of 5 or sometimes 7 bristles, all distinct to tlie 

 base, which is little dilated, plumose only above the middle. — Bot. King Exp. 199, t. 20, 



