226 COMPOSITE. 



purple-tipped and longer than the outer: receptacle 

 naked. Florets yellow. Pappus copious, white. Wight 

 Ic. t. 1099. 



Nilgiri and Pulney downs. Flowers in May. Fyson 363. 

 Bourne 11 00,* 11 09, 2097. 



Gen. Dist, Hilly parts of India. 



LAGGERA. f.b.i. 78 xxvii. 



A small genus, distinguished among all our COM- 

 POSITE by the wings on the four angles of the stem and 

 branches. Annual or perennial herbs with alternate 

 leaves, decurrent as wings, and loosely panicled unrayed 

 flower-heads characterised by the involucral bracts in 

 several series ; the outer shorter than the inner, rather 

 rigid and spreading : receptacle without scales : florets 

 all tubular and slender, the outer in several series, female 

 only ; the central ones complete : anther bases divided : 

 achenes with one circle of hairs. Very similar to 

 BLUMEA in most respects, but the anther bases less 

 cordate. Our species, however, are most easily distin- 

 guished by the winged stems. 



Species about 10 in tropical Africa and India. 



Wings entire, stem sturdy . L. alata. 



Wings cut up irregularly : stem slender . . . L. pterodonta. 



Laggcra alata Schultz ; F.B.I. iii 271, XXVII 2. 

 Stem as thick as a lead pencil, very rough with 

 hardened leaf-bases, in the younger parts densely 

 pubescent, almost woolly and winged by the decurrent 

 margins of the leaves. Leaves broadly-oblanceolate to 

 ovate or oblong, 2 to 4 by % to \]/i inches at the widest 

 and Yz inch at the base, on the younger branches M inch 

 only in length ; ovate, sharply serrate with triangular 

 teeth 1/16 to y^ inch apart, pubescent above, tomentose 

 below especially on the nerves. Flower-heads peduncled 

 in the axils of the upper leaves of short lateral branches 



