eS ay 
SONCHUS LOBELIACE® 405 
ately dentate leaves and middle-sized heads of yellow flowers. 
Involucre campanulate, in age usually broadened and fleshy- 
thickened at base, becoming conical. Achenes obcompressed, 
without beak or neck or dilated disk. Pappus of very soft and 
fine flaccid bristles, which fall more or less in connection, and 
commonly one or more stronger ones which fall separately. 
S. overaceus L. Sp. 794. Fibrous-rooted annual: stem nearly simple, 
1-10 feet high: lower leaves petioled, lyrate-pinnatifid, 5-10 inches long, 
the terminal segment commonly large and triangular, the margins dentic- 
ulate with mucronate or scarcely spiny teeth; upper pinnatifid, clasping by 
an auriclate or sagittate base, the auricles acute: inyolucre 6-8 lines high : 
achenes flat, longitudinally ribbed and transversely rugose. Common in 
fields and waste places. Naturalized from Europe. 
8S. asper All. Fl. Ped. i, 222. Stem often stout. 1-6 feet high, from 
an annual root: leaves undivided, lobed or pinnatifid, spinulose-dentate ; 
the lower spatulate to lanceolate, more or less distinctly petioled; the up- 
per clasping by an auriculate base, the auricles rounded: involucre glab- 
rous, about 6 lines high: achenes smooth, 3-nerved oneach side. Common 
in fields and waste places. Naturalized from Europe. 
OrpER LII, LOBELIACE Juss. 
Herbs, or rarely shrubs, with usually milky acrid juice, alter- 
nate leaves without stipules, racemose inflorescence and perfect 
5-merous flowers. Calyx adnate to the whole or the lower hall 
of the ovary, the. limb cleft to the ovary into 5 lobes. Corolla 
inserted just where the calyx becomes free from the ovary, its 
lobes Pilvate or induplicate in the bud, commonly deeper cleft 
or completely split down between two of the lobes, the cleft 
mostly on the upper side in the open flower but becoming so 
by a twist; in the early bud the split looks toward the bract; 
the lobes sometimes disposed to separate from below upward 
and the Jimb to be bilabiately irregular. Stamens inserted with 
the corolla and mostly free; anthers 2-celled. introrsely dehis- 
cent, firmly united around the top of the style into a ring or 
short tube. Ovary 2-celled, with placente projecting from the 
axis, sometimes 1-celled with two parietal placentae. Style 
entire: stigma usually 2-lobed, girt with a rim of hairs. Ovules 
and seeds mostly indefinitely numerous, small, anatropous. 
Embryo straight, in the axis of fleshy albumen. 
* Corolla cleft to the base on one side: capsule free at the apex. 
Lobelia _Calyx-tube short: capsule many-seeded, 2-valved at the top. 
* * Corolla with a closed tube: capsule wholly inferior. 
Howellia Calyx-tube linear-clavate: capsule 1-celled, few-seeded. 
Laurentia Calyx-tube turbinate or oblong, corolla with tube as long 
as the limb: capsule short, 2-valved at summit. 
Bolelia Calyx-tube very long: corolla tube very short: capsule very 
long, opening by 1-3 long fissures. 
= 
oo bo 
es 
