COMPOSIT#. 
By far the largest order of the vegetable kingdom and the most widely distributed 
of the Dicotyledonous division. Of species, there are already known and described, nearly, 
if not fully, 10,000, derived from every quarter of the known world, from the Equator to 
both pular circles and from the level of the ocean almost to the line of perpetual congela- 
tion. But though thus general they are far from being equally distributed as regards the 
proportion they bear, in each region, to othr plants. In France they are estimated to amount 
to about 1 in 8 :inGermany, } in 15 : North America, 1 in 6: Sicily, 1 in 2 (?): Tropical New 
Holland 1 in 23, &c. In India they probably amount to about 1 in 20 and on the Neilgher- 
ries to about 1 in 15. ‘These estimates are however only approximations, but are sufficiently 
near to show the general predominance of the family over all others, which is still more 
conclusively established bythe better ascertained fact of their species constituting about one 
tenth of those of the whole flowering vegetation of the earth. 
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A family of such vast extent and at the same time so very natural has engaged 
“much of the attentign of Botanists with a view to its subdivision in such a manner as will 
facilitate the investigation of its species by grouping them in well defined and naturally dis- 
posed tribes and genera. Great progress has undoubtedly been made in this work, especially 
in the monagraph of the late most excellent Professor DeCandolle who devoted nearly 10 
years of his valuable life to the completion of that most arduous undertaking , carefully 
availing himself, throughout, of the labours of his predecessors. But much as he has accom- 
plished it cannot be doubted that much remains to be effected before it can be admitted 
that even an approximation to perfection has been attained. The family as a whole, may be 
said to be, one of the most easily recognized of the vegetable kingdom: as regards the Indian 
‘ Flora this is certainly the case, there being only one genus( Xanthium) of our Flora referred 
to it, about which any one,previously acquainted with a few species, could entertain a doubt 
and it cannot, I think, be admitted as a true congener. 
The marks by which Composite are distinguished are few in number and gene- 
rally easily made out—F lowers in heads, surrounded by an involucrum. Florets, seated on a 
receptacle, furnished with a variously formed pappus calyx, but which is sometimes obsolete 
or wanting. Corolla superior, monopetalous, lobed, the lobes furnished with marginal veins, 
7 . B 
