COMPOSITAE LIGULIFLORAE CHICORY 759 



Poisonous properties. When fed in large quantities it imparts a bitter 

 | flavor to milk and butter. It contains the bitter glucoside chicorin C 30 H 34 O 10 . 

 jChicory root is used as an adulterant of coffee. 



I 



Fig. 439b. Dandelion (Taraxacum offlcinale). 1, Single 

 head during flowering, single bead after flowering. 2, Single 

 flower with corolla stamens and style. 3, Achenium. 4, Recep- 

 tacle and single achenium. (After Strasburger, Noll Schenck 

 and Schimper). 



2. Sonchus (Tourn.) L. Sow Thistle 



Annual or perennial herbs with alternate, mostly auriculate-clasping, entire 

 'lentate, lobed, or pinnatifid leaves with soft prickly margins; flower heads in 

 orymbose or paniculate clusters; involucre bell-shaped; scales imbricated in 

 leveral rows ; receptacle flat and naked ; achenes oblong, more or less flattened ; 

 0-20-ribbed ; pappus of soft white capillary bristles. 



About 45 species of the old world. 



Sonclnts oleraceus L. Annual Sow-thistle 



Annual or perennial succulent herbs with leafy stems, smooth and glau- 

 jous with corymbed or umbellate heads of yellow flowers. Stem leaves dentate, 

 rancinate-pinnatifid, terminal segments large and triangular; heads numerous; 

 .lowers pale yellow, occurring in summer and fall. 



Distribution. Common in fields and waste places throughout North Amer- 

 :a, except far northward. Also from Mexico to South America. 



Sonchus an'ctisis L. Field Sow-thistle 



A glabrous perennial, producing deep creeping root-stock, stem leafy,, 

 ranched, basal leaves runcinate-pinnatitid, spiny-toothed, clasping by a heart- 

 jiaped base ; flowers yellow ; achenes transversely wrinkled. 



