^52 Composite. 



y^ inch including the beak, quite flat, irregularly ribbed, 

 suddenly contracted into a brown cleft tip in which the 

 white beak is situated. Pappus % inch dirty white with 

 an outer ring of bristles. 



Nilgiris : Forester's hut near Ootacamund. Bour7te 5218. 



Gen. Dist. Also temperate Himalayas and Khasi hills. 



SONCHUS. F.B.I. 78 cxvii. 



Sowthistle. 



Leafy herbs with milky juice and radical, or alternate 

 and then stem-clasping leaves, and irregular umbels or 

 corymbs of yellow flower-heads, often broadest at the 

 base, of the CICHORIACEM type (p. 2I0) (all florets 

 ligulate and similar), on a flat receptacle, and charac- 

 terised by the ribbed obovoid or ellipsoid compressed 

 achenes, without beaks, and the long slender pappus 

 hairs united at the base and falling ofl" together. 



Species 24 in the north temperate regions and central Asia ; 

 a few spread as weeds all over the world. 



Sonchus arvcnsis Linn. ; F.BJ. iii 414, CXVII 2 ; 

 Corn Sowthistle. Stem l^ to 2 feet with perennial 

 rootstock. Radical leaves deeply pinnatisect, the ter- 

 minal and each pair of lateral leaflets forming broad 

 triangles with almost horizontal base; margin finely 

 sinuate-spine-toothed: upper leaves lanceolate, broadest 

 at the deeply cordate stem-clasping base. Flower-heads 

 I inch, in an irregular umbel : involucral bracts glabrous 

 ^ inch. Achenes dark brown, ribbed and cross-striated? 

 blunt above, tapering below ; pappus silky. Wight 

 Ic. t. I142. 



Ootacamund as a weed. Flowers in cold months. Pulneys : 

 at lower levels. Poombari {Bourne). 



Gen. Dist. Wild and a weed cf cultivation in all temperate and many 

 tropical countries. 



