RUDBECKIA FULGIDA. 

 BRILLIANT CONE-FLOWER. 



NATURAL ORDER, COMPOSIT/E. 



RuDBECKiA FULGIDA, Alton. — Stem hirsute with rigid hairs; branches slender, naked above; 

 leaves strigous-pubescent, remotely dentate, radical petiolate, ovate, five-veined, cauline 

 lance-oblong, tapering to the sessile, sub-clasping base ; scales oblong, spreading, as long 

 as the spreadmg rays; pales glabrous, linear oblong, obtuse. Stem from one to three feet 

 high. Rays twelve to fourteen, scarcely longer than the leafy involucre, deep orange- 

 yellow. (Wood's Class-Book of Botany. See also Gray's Manual of the Botatiy of the 

 N'orthern I 'niteJ States, and Chapman's Flora of the Southern United Stales.) 



HE genus Riidbeckia to which our present ilkistration 

 belongs has received no common name from the com- 

 mon people ; but botanists have called it the " Cone-flower," 

 because the conical receptacle, or that which supports the centre 

 of the flower, is more conical than that of the sun-flowers [Heliaii- 

 thus) with which it was thought to have some relationship many 

 years ago. It is proper however to remind the reader that names 

 must be regarded as but names, and litde more ; for in naming 

 a plant from some peculiarity we can never know when another 

 one may be discovered having the same character though 

 differing in something else. Indeed it often happens that a new 

 plant, waiting for a name, has a known peculiarity much 

 more strikingly developed than its elder sister. We cannot 

 however alter names on this account, because such a change 

 would be a greater evil than the misunderstandings from the 

 application of the term. It has therefore become the habit to 

 regard lightly the meaning of the name so far as idcntihcaticn 

 of the plant is concerned. This is worth remembering when we 

 think of " Cone-flower " in connection with Rudbcckia, for there 



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