Ver7ioma. COMPOSIT.E. 89 



bristle. — Proc. Am. Acad. xv. 47. (Echinophone affinis Mariana, etc., Pluk. Mant. 66, t. 388, 

 fig. 6 ■?) E. scaler, Michx. Fl. in part ; Torr. & Gray, Fl. 1. c, not L. E. nudicaulis, Ell. 

 in herb. Hook., not of Sk. 1. c. — Low and sandy woodlands, Delaware {C'anbij) to Georgia, 

 W. Louisiana, and Arkansas (Harveij). 



3. VERNONIA, Schreb. Irox-weed. (^Wm. Vernon, an early collector 

 in Virginia, &c.) — Perennial herbs (or some in the tropics shrnbs) ; with alter- 

 nate and jiinni^tely-veined leaves, and usually purple or rose-colored flowers, 

 occasionally varying to white. — Gen. 541; DC. Prodr. v. 15; Torr. <& Gray, 

 Fl. ii. 57 ; Benth. & Hook., Gen. ii. 227. — A huge genus, of nearly 400 species, 

 the greater part S. American, some S. African and S. Asian ; the N. American 

 species all of the section Lepidaploa, Benth. & Hook. 1. c. (^Lejndaploa, &c., Cass.), 

 having somewhat spherical heads in terminal cymes or terminating corymbiform 

 branches. Ours all many-flowered ; the (fuscous or even ferruginous) pappus 

 persistent or nearly so, and double ; akenes commonly sprinkled or beset with 

 resinous atoms between the salient ribs ; foliage often puncticulate. Fl. late 

 summer and autumn. The species are extremely diflicult : there are spontaneous 

 hj'brids between such very difl^erent species as V. Arhansana and V. Baldwinii, 

 V. fascicidata and V. Baldwinii, and even between V. Baldwinii and V. Lind- 

 heimeri ! 



* Stems leafy throughout: short outer pappus conspicuous, and squamcllate rather than setose. 

 ■^r- Heads large, sometimes an inch high, 50-TO-flowered. 



V. Arkansana, DC. Tall (8 or lO feet), rather glabrous: leaves all linear-lanceolate 

 (4 to 12 inches long and lines wide), attenuate-acuminate, runcinately denticulate: heads all 

 on simple and somewliat clavate peduncles, nearly hemispherical : involucre green, very 

 squarrose ; its bracts all equalling the disk, and with long filiform tips (those of the upper 

 reddish), the outer and loose ones filiform nearly or quite to the base: akenes minutely 

 hispid on the ribs. — Prodr. vii. 264 ; Nutt. in Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. n. ser. vii. 283 ; Torr. & 

 Gray, Fl. ii. 59 ; Torr. in Sitgreaves Exjjed. t. 2. — Plains and alluvial banks of streams, 

 Missouri and Kansas to E. Texas. 



-i— -1— Heads smaller, half-inch high or less, 15— 40-flowered, rarely only lO-flowercd. 

 •H- Leaves slightly or not at all scabrous, and without revolute margins, most of them acutely den- 

 ticulate or serrate with rigid or somewliat spinulose teeth, varying from linear-lanceolate to 

 oblong-ovate, acuminate or very acute, pinnately veined : stems leafy up lo the inflorescence; 

 cymes mostly compound. (Species not clearly limited.) 



= Akenes under a lens more or less hispidulous on the ribs. 



V. Noveboracensis, Willd. Somewhat glabrous or pubescent, 3 to 6 feet high : leaves 

 from elongated- to oblong-lanceolate (3 to 9 inches long) : heads in an open cyme, 20-40- 

 flowered : involucre commonly brownish or d.ark purplish ; the ovate and ovate-lanceolate 

 bracts (or at least the upper ones) abruptly acuminate into a slender cusp or slender tortuous 

 awn, usually some of the lower wholly aristiform and loose. — Spec. iii. 1632; DC. Prodr. 

 V. 63 ; Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 57. SerratuUi Noreboracensls (founded on Herm. Parad. Bot., 

 & Dill. Elth. 355, t. 263) and S. pnt'alfa (in herb, and of Dill. Elth. t. 264, bracts more 

 aristate than the figure shows), L. Spec. ii. 818. V. pixealta. Less, in Linn. iv. 264 ; Hook. 

 Fl. i. 304. V.tomentosa, Ell. Sk. ii. 288 {Vhrijsocoma tomentosa, Walt. Car. 196), a form 

 with tomentulose pubescence. Varies with pale or sometimes white instead of pink-purple 

 corollas, tlie involucre then greenish. — Low grounds, coast of New England to Georgia, 

 west to Wisconsin and Missouri, but mostly an eastern species. 



Var. latif olia. Lower, 2 to 5 feet high : leaves oblong-ovate or broadly lanceolate, 

 pale or glaucescent beneath, the larger more coarsely serrate: heads fewer: involucre vary- 

 ing from hemispherical (of fewer bracts) to somewhat turbinate, and its bracts merely acute, 

 acuminate, mucronate, or some with a short filiform cusp. — Serratida glauca, L. 1. c, founded 

 on Dill. Elth. 354, t. 262 ; the specimen has many aristate-tipped bracts. Vernonia glauca 

 (and nearly V. pnnulta), Willd. Spec. iii. 1633. V. ovalifolia, Tow. & Gray, 1. c. ; Cliapm. 



