139 



very woolly, the inner smooth, obtuse in the sterile heads, 

 acute in the fertile. 



The minute flowers, often called florets, stand crowded 

 together on the receptacle the expanded summit of the 

 short peduncle. Here the receptacle is naked, i. e., bears no 

 chaff among the florets. The ? florets show, first, an ovary 

 at the base (inferior) ; 2d, a calyx (pappus*) consisting of 

 about 20 fine white hairs crowning the ovary ; 3d, a tubular 

 corolla exceedingly slender, inclosing, -ith, a style protrud- 

 ing (exserted) from its summit. The $ show a slender 

 abortive ovary at the base ; a pappus of 20 club-shaped, 

 knobby, white bristles ; a tubular 5-toothed corolla inclosing 

 5 stamens whose brown anthers are united into a tube and 

 exserted. The style is rarely seen. 



Thus the fertile plants are known at sight by the longer, 

 finer, whiter pappus not sprinkled with the brown dots of 

 the anthers. The shorter, clubby bristles of the sterile 

 pappus are curious objects under the microscope, but poorly 

 contrived for wings. 



The Fruits are each one-seeded a sort of achenium. 

 When ripe, they quit the receptacle, and, winged with their 

 fine light pappus, are wafted away and scattered. For the 

 abortive achenia, wings would be useless. 



The Name of this plant is Antennaria plantaginifolia ; 

 the former suggested by the resemblance of the singular 

 pappus to the antennae of an insect ; the latter by the like- 

 ness of the leaves to those of the Plantain. 



* From the Latin pappus, an old man, a grandfather, alluding to the white hairs. 

 Comparing this fruit with the cremocarp of Cicely (p. 131), it is evident that the ovary 

 is inferior, i. e. the calyx tube adheres to the ovary, and the limb (sepals), if any, will 

 seem to stand upon it, as the corolla does. But owing to its crowded condition in the 

 dense heads, the sepals develop themselves in singular forms, usually split up into 

 hairs or bristles, sometimes into 5 scales, as in Ageratum, sometimes into 2 teeth, as 

 in Sunflower, and sometimes wholly obsolete, as in Mayweed. Again, the top of the 

 ovary grows up into a neck elevating the pappus, as in Milkweed ; or into a slender 

 pedicel, as in Dandelion. 



