44 Lxxi. coMPosiT.i:. 



35. BIDENS, Liuii. 



Annual or perennial herbs, sometimes scandent. Leaves opposite, 

 toothed, incised, or 1-2-piunate. Heads corymbosely panicled or 

 subsolitary, heterogamous and raj'ed, or homogamoiis and disciform ; 

 ray-flowers when present l-seriate, neuter or more rarely $ ; disk- 

 flowers ^ , fertile. Involucre campanulate or subhemispheric ; bracts 

 sub-2-seriate, often shortly connate at the base ; outer herbaceous, 

 short or expanded into elongate leaves ; inner membranous, often with 

 white margins. Receptacle flat or somewhat convex ; palcse narrow, 

 nearly flat, subtending the g flowers. Corollas of ray-flowers ligulate, 

 the ligiiles spreading, yellow or white ; corollas of disk-flowers usually 

 yellow, regular, tubular, with a 5-lid cylindric limb. Anthei'-cells 

 entire at the base, or sagittate with blunt auricles. Style-arms of 

 5 flowers hairy above ; tips short, acute or subulate. Pappus of 2-4 

 rigid retrorsely hispid bristles, or 0. Achenes dorsally compressed or 

 sub-4-gonous, obovoid-oblong or linear, often narrowed but not beaked 

 above. — Distrib. Chiefly American ; species about 50. 



1. Bidens pilosa, Linn. Sj'). PL (1753) p. 832. Annual, erect, 

 glabrous or more or less pubescent, 2-3 ft. high ; stems quadrangular, 

 grooved; branches opposite. Leaves very variable, sometimes 3-foliolate, 

 but (in the Bombay Presidency) usually consisting of 2 subopposite 

 })airs of leaflets and a deeply 3-lobed terminal leatiet which is larger 

 than the lateral ones, the lowest pair of leaflets sometimes again 

 pinnately divided ; ultimate leaflets subsessile, ovate, acute, serrate, 

 glabrous ; common petioles somewhat dilated and sheathing at the base. 

 Heads reaching | in. in diam., elongating in fruit. Outer invol. -bracts 

 herbaceous, oblong, subacute, shoi'ter than the inner, ciliate and with 

 scarious margins. Pay-flowers ligulate, white or yellow, ligules narrow, 

 strap-shaped. Pappus of 2-4 rigid retrorsely his|)id slightly spreading 

 awns. Achenes ^-| in. long, linear, quadrangular, slightly tapering 

 towards the apex, glabrous. PI. B. I. v. 3, p. 309 ; C. B. Clarke, Comp. 

 Ind. p. 140 ; Trim. Fl. Ceyl. v. 3, p. 40 ; Woodr. in Journ. Bomb. Nat. 

 V. 11 (1898) p. (350. Bidens WaUicliii, DC. Prodr. v. 5, p. 598 ; Grah. 

 Cat. p. 101 ; Dalz. & Gibs. p. 128. — Plowers nearly all the year. 



I have not attempted to keep the var. hijyinnaia, Llook. f. PI. B. I. 1. c. 

 (B. Wallichii, DC), distinct from B. jiilosa. The most common, indeed 

 almost the only, form in the Bombay Presidency is this variety, but the 

 leaves of the plant are so variable and so variously cut that 1 agree with 

 Trimen (I. c.) that the variety is scarcely worth distinction. 



Tolerably common in the Deccan plains and gardens. Deccan : Poona, Ranade ! ; 

 Bowdban jungles near Poona, Kanitkar ! — Distkib. Tlirougbout India ; Ceylon and 

 most warm countries. 



36. GLOSSOGYNE, Cass. 



Perennial glabrous herbs with almost naked stems and branches. 

 Leaves mostly radical, crowded, pinnatifid, or cuncate and 3-toothed, 

 the cauline leaves alternate, or the lower o|)posite or 0. Heads small, 

 pedunclcd, few, corymbose, heterogamous and rayed or homogamous 

 and disciform; ray-flowers $, fertile; disk-flowers ^, fertile. In- 

 volucre small ; bracts 2-3-seriale, narrow, shortly connate at tlie base; 

 the inner often larger and margined. ]{eceptaclc flat ; paleoc scarious, 

 flat or concave. Corollas of $ flowers ligulate, yellow (or w hite ?), the 



