230 DiPSACE^. (teasel family.) 



nials, hairy or prickly, with large oblong heads. (Name from Sixl/du, to thirst, 

 probably because the united cup-shaped bases of the leaves in some species 

 hold water.) 



1. D. SYLVESTRis, Mill. ( WiLD Teasel.) Prickly ; leaves lancc-oblong ; 

 leaves of the involucre slender, longer than the head ; bracts (chaff) tapering 

 into a long flexible awn with a straight point. — Roadsides; rather rare. 

 (Nat. from Eu.) Suspected to be the original of 



2. D. full6num, L., the Fuller's Teasel, which has a shorter involucre, 

 and stiff chaff to the heads, with hooked points, used for raising a nap upon 

 woollen cloth ; it has escaped from cultivation in some places. (Adv. from Lu.) 



Order 55. COMPOSIT^E. (Composite Family.) 



Flowers in a close head (the compound flower of the older botanists), 

 on a common receptacle, surrounded hy an involucre, with 5 (i~arely 4) 

 stamens inserted on the corolla, their anthers united in a tube (syngenesious). 

 ■ — Calyx-tube united with the 1-celled ovary, the limb (called a pappus) 

 crowning its summit in the form of bristles, awns, scales, teeth, etc., or 

 cup-sliaped, or else entirely absent. Corolla either strap-shaped or tubu- 

 lar ; in the latter chiefly 5-lobed, valvate in the bud, the veins bordering 

 the margins of the lobes. Style 2-cleft at the apex (in sterile flowers 

 usually entire). Fruit seed-like (achene), dry, containing a single erect 

 anatropous seed, with no albumen. — An immense family, in temperate 

 regions chiefly herbs, without stipules, with perfect, polygamous, monoe- 

 cious or dioecious flowers. The flowers with a strap-shaped (Jigulate) 

 corolla are called rays or ray-fiowers ; the head which presents such 

 flowers, either throughout or at the margin, is radiate. The tubular 

 flowers compose the disk ; and a head Avhich has no ray-flowers is said 

 to be discoid. AVhen the head contains two sorts of flowers it is said to 

 be heterogamous ; when only one sort, homogamous. The leaves of the 

 involucre, of whatever form or texture, are termed scales. The bracts 

 or scales, which often grow on the receptacle among the flowers, are 

 called the chaff; when these are wanting, the receptacle is said to be 

 naked. — The largest order of Phaenogamous plants. The genera are 

 divided by the corolla into three series, only two of which are represented 

 in the Northern United States. The first is much the larger. 



Systematic Synopsis. 



Series I. TUBULIFLOR^. 



Corolla tubular in all the perfect flowers, regularly 5- (rarely 3 - 4-) 

 lobed, ligulate only in the marginal or ray-flowers, which when present 

 are either pistillate only, or neutral (with neither stamens nor pistil). 



Tribe I. VERNONIACEiE. Heads discoid ; the flowers all alike, perfect and tubu- 

 lar, never yellow. Branches of the style long and slender, terete, thread-shaped, mi- 

 nutely bristly-hairy all over. — Leaves alternate or scattered. 



1 . Elephantopus. Heads 3 - 5-flowered, several crowded together into a compound head. 



Involucre of 8 scales. Pappus of several chaffy bristles. 



2. Vernonia. Heads several -many-flowered, separate. Involucre of many scales. Pap- 



pus double, the inner capillary, the outer of minute chaffy bristles. 



