COMPOSITE. 119 



111 the tliree Scottish localities mentioned it is the sub-male 

 plant which occurs. It is included in this work not because it is 

 perfectly naturalized, but because it may be confounded with P. vul- 

 garis — my specimens from Rubislaw are so named. 



TFhite Coltsfoot. 



French, Tussilage Blanchdtre. German, Weisse Neunkraft. 



SPECIES III— PET ASITES VULGARIS. Desf. 

 Plate DCCLXXXIII. (the sub-male plant) ; DCCLXXXIV. (the female plant). 



Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. XVI. Tab. CMI. 



Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 2861. 



P. officinalis, Monch. Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ, et Helv. ed. il p. 383. Gr. & Godr. Fl. de 



Fr. Vol. II. p. 89. 

 Tussilago Petasites, Linn. Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 431 (sub-male plant). Benth. Handbook 



Brit. Fl. p. 289. 

 Tussilago hybrida, Linn. Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 430 (female plant). 



Leaves roundish, deeply cordate with the lobes not conti- 

 guous, dentate and denticulate, at first arachnoid - floccose, at 

 length glabrous above and grey -cottony beneath. Sub -male 

 florets in a short conical - oblong racemose panicle or raceme, 

 scarcely elongating after flowering ; the female in a longer and 

 more lax racemose panicle or raceme, which becomes lax and 

 much elongated after flowering. Phyllaries rather obtuse. Eemale 

 florets filiform, obliquely truncate. Branches of the stigma in the 

 sub-male florets very short, ovoid-obtuse. 



In wet places, especially by the sides of streams. Not un- 

 common in England and the South of Scotland ; rare north of 

 the Eorth and Clyde. The female plant rare. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Spring. 



Eootstock creeping, fleshy. Leaves, when full-grown, very large, 

 on stout hollow channelled petioles ; lamina sometimes 3 feet in 

 diameter, deeply cordate at the base, scolloped at the edges, with 

 the portions between the projections finely toothed : the leaves at 

 first are arachnoid above and densely so beneath, but when mature 

 most of the covering disappears, though they still remain grey and 

 more or less arachnoid beneath. Scapes produced before the leaves, 

 or as the latter are beginning to appear, 4 inches to 1 foot high, with 

 pale-greenish lanceolate empty bracts, which have sometimes a small 

 lamina at the apex ; upper bracts strapshaped or linear-acute. An- 

 thodes very numerous. Pedicels in the sub-male plant very short, 

 simple, or sometimes 2- or 3-flo\vercd, — longer and more slender in 



