ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY- 87 



LXXXVIL— ASTERACE.E. 



CompositcE — Synaiithereoi. 



This is by far the largest and also about the most natural of the whole scries of 



natural orders of dicotyledonous plants. The elaboration and publication of the vasl 

 mass of material placed at the disposal of the late Professor DeCanduUe, fur the eluci- 

 dation of this family, occupied that most eminent and indefatigable Botanist nearly eight 

 years. The result of these labours has, as might be expected from his talents and as- 

 siduity, put the world in possession of the most masterly account of this gigantic ordrr 

 that has ever appeared. His monograph is said to include 8500 specie?, and though tht^ 

 last part was published so late as 1838, there has already been great additions made 

 and more are daily being added, so that I presume 10,000 species may ahcady be set 

 down as the number known to belong to it. Many of these species are doubtlo«w de- 

 scribed twice over and some, perhaps,, even oftener than that, under different names, but 

 I dare say it will as often be found that two or three species are included under one, 

 owing to several persons describing, in different places, distinct species under the same 

 name, an event of frequent occurrence, but not easily detected except by a comparison 'of 

 authentic specimens which are not always attainable. 



It is an interesting fact in natural history that out of the immense mass of S])L'cie- 

 congregated under a common denomination, and presenting among themselves almost every 

 form of vegetation, yet so constant are the distinctive family characters by which they 

 are bound together, that almost any one -species being thoroughly known and these char- 

 acters clearly understood, there is no difficulty in afterwards recognizing any other of tht 

 whole group as belonging to this family. These characters may be summed up in few 

 words: — ^Flowers, or florets, as they are usually called, in heads, surrounded by an iuvolucrum 

 and seated on a common receptacle: an obsolate, chaffy, or pappus, calyx: monopetalous 

 superior corolla : united anthers, forming a tube round the style: and a 1-celled ovary 

 with a single erect ovule. 



Numerous other peculiarities belong to the family as will be seen from a perusal oi 

 the following very extended descriptive, or natural, character which I introduce in full from 

 DeCandoUe's Prodromus, after the ordinary "character of the order,'" but the above com- 

 prehends the more obvious essential peculiarities of the order. Those, however, require 

 to be taken together to constitute a true Compositous plant, for each taken separately is 

 found in other families, but never the whole. 



Chak-acter of the OiiD£;ji. Flowers (florets) unisexual or hermaphrodite, collected 

 m dense heads upon a common receptacle, surrounded by an involucre. Bracts cither 

 present or absent; when present stationed at the base of the florets, and called pale«' 

 of the receptacle. Calyx superior, closely adhering to the ovary, and undistinguishable 

 from it; its limb either wanting or membranous, divided into bristles, palea?, hairs, or 

 feathers, and called pappus. Corolla monopetalous, superior, usually deciduous, either ligM- 

 late, or funnel-shaped; in the latter case 4- or 5-toothed, with a valvate aestivation. Sti^i^ 

 mens equal in number with the teeth of the corolla and alternate wjth them; the anthers 

 cohering into a cylinder. Ovary inferior, 1-celled, with a single erect ovule; style simple; 

 stigmas 2, either distinct or united. Fruit a small, indehiscent, dry pericarp, crowned with 

 the limb of the calyx. Seed solitary, erect; embryo w^ith a taper inferior radicle; al- 

 bumen none. — Lindley. 



Nat[jral Character. Calyx tubular adhering to the ovary; tube sometimes only 

 equalling the ovary (fruit erostrate), sometimes prolonged beyond (fruit rostrate)^ the 

 limb or pappus sometimes wanting, or reduced to a mere margin; sometimes, but rarely 

 foliaceous, sometimes scarcose; entire, dentate, lobed, or more frequently passing into chaffy 

 scales or bristles, which are either simple, branched, denticiUate or feathery; one, two 



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