THE DAISY FAMILY. 



291 



ones of absence of stipules, and of never being compound. The end- 

 less modifications of the "divided leaf" which they present, are 

 referable, perhaps without exception, to the type called " feather- 

 lobed." Several of the wild English species supply beautiful examples 

 of the curious form called "runcinate," resembling a succession of 

 arrow-heads, the point of each inserted into the base of the next 

 above. (Fig. 158.) The structxire of the flowers, which are invariably 

 compound, was explained in the Introduction, pages 31 — 33. It is 



Fig. 158. 



Runcinate leaf of 

 Dandelion. 



Figs. 159 and 160. 

 Lyrate leaves of Prenanthes. 



merely necessary to add here, that the florets, both tubular and ligu- 

 late, are in many cases unisexual, and that sometimes the entire head 

 is of the same character, or nearly so, as happens in the butterbur and 

 the mountain- cudweed. The fruit consists of hard and dry achenia, 

 in shape long and slender, and grooved, embossed and jewelled in the 

 most beautiful manner. Every achcnium Is crowned, in the majority 

 of species, with a tuft of fine white hairs, which usually spread hori- 



21 A 



