OBSERVATIONS ON THE COMPOSITA.—I. 
By Epwarp L. Greenn. 
THE history of this largest of the Families of Flowering 
Plants is coeval with the beginnings of systematic botany. 
Exactly three centuries have passed since Zaluzian named 
and defined the Class of ‘“‘Composirm;” and a little more 
than a century later Vaillant, the first great specialist in this 
family, gave an acceptable system of the genera. Both these 
founders excluded the Cichoriacex, or lettuce tribe, and the 
Carduacex, or thistles, as separate natural families; and so 
did nearly all authors, except Adanson and Linneus, down 
to the beginning of the present century. The three Orders, 
severally represented by the thistles, the lettuceworts, and 
the true Composite (Corymbifere of Vaillant, Jussieu and 
others) will, I think, ultimately be accepted as perfectly 
natural and entirely distinct and legitimate families. Of my 
reasons for accepting the Cichoriacee as a separate Natural 
Order, I gave a statement some three or four years since 
(Pitt. i, 297, 298). 
To the philosophy and the classification of the Composite, 
in the most comprehensive use of that name, the most impor- 
tant contributors within the present century have been Cassini, 
DeCandolle, Lessing, Bentham and Baillon. In North 
America where representatives of the order excessively 
abound, the following names, Rafinesque, Nuttall, Elliott and 
Gray, are conspicuous among those who elaborated new 
materials, as these were gathered, and who proposed the 
greatest number of new species and new genera. But only 
the mere foundations of a rational and consistent classification, 
and of a valid and stable nomenclature for our Composite, 
seem yet to have been laid; and doubtless the most careful 
and diligent labors of several generations of specialists yet 
to come, will be necessary to the establishing of the founda- 
tions and the rearing of a good superstructure; for in 
Enyruza. Vol. I, No. 1 [2 Jan., 1893]. 
