COMPOSITE FAMILY 271 



24. Petasites (Butter-bur). — Leaves large, broad, radical, pro- 

 duced after the flowers ; heads numerous, purplish or white, in a 

 raceme, many-flowered ; florets all tubular, sub-dio3cious. (Name 

 from the Greek peiasos, an umbrella, from the large size of the 

 leaves.) 



I. P. hybridus (Common Butter-bur). — The only indigenous 

 species, the largest, and, where it abounds, the most pernicious 

 of all the weeds which this country produces. Leaves kidney- 

 shaped, I — 3 feet in diameter, downy, appearing after the flowers ; 

 heads dull lilac, many flowered, in a raceme, on a short fleshy 

 peduncle with sheathing bracts terminating in small blades. — 

 Marshy meadows and river-banks ; common. Planted near bee- 

 hives by Swedish farmers, on account of its early flowering. — Fl. 

 January — March. Perennial. 



* P. frdgrans (Winter Heliotrope), with cordate leaves and a 

 loose panicle of a few dingy but sweet-scented heads with ligulate 

 fertile florets, flowering very early in January, and *P. albus 

 (White-flowered Butter-bur), with much smaller, deeply scalloped 

 leaves and white flowers, are common in shrubberies, almost hiding 

 the ground with their leaves, thriving beneath the shade of trees 

 and shrubs, but overpowering all herbaceous plants, and eventu- 

 ally, it is said, even the shrubs themselves. Both are occasionally 

 naturalised, the former in the south, the latter in Scotland. 



*25. DoRONicuM (Leopard's-bane). — Radical leaves stalked; 

 cauline leaves scattered, amplexicaul ; heads terminal, nearly 

 solitary, large, yellow ; bracts in 2 or 3 rows, narrow, acute, equal ; 

 receptacle conical ; ray-florets in i row, ligulate, with no pappus ; 

 pappus of disk-florets of several rows of stiff hairs. (Name of un- 

 certain etymology.) 



I.* D. Pardalidnches (Great Leopard's-bane). — Stem 2 — 3 feet 

 high, erect, solitary, hairy, hollow ; leaves cordate, soft : the 

 earlier flower -heads overtopped by the later. — Damp, hilly woods ; 

 rare, not indigenous. — Fl. June, July. Perennial. 



2.^ D. plantagineum (Plantain-leaved Leopard's-bane), differing 

 in having ovate leaves and solitary heads of flowers, is very rare 

 and not indigenous. — Fi. June, July. Perennial. 



26. Senecio (Groundsel, Rag-wort). — A large genus of herbs 

 and undershrubs ; leaves scattered ; heads usually yellow, corymb- 

 ose, or solitary ; bracts in i row, sometimes with a few smaller 

 scales at their base, narrow, adpressed, herbaceous ; receptacle 

 naked ; ray sometimes absent ; pappus of several rows of soft, 

 slender hairs. (Name from the Latin senex, an old man, from 

 the white or grey hairy pappus.) 



