ERIGERON MUCRONATUM. 

 POINTED ERIGERON. 



NATURAL ORDER, COMPOSIT.E. 



Erigeron MUCRONATUM, De Candolle. — Stem erect, terete, somewhat glabrous or sub-pube- 

 rulous, branched ; leaves lanceolate, narrowed at the base, somewhat glabrous, ciliate, entire 

 or occasionally lobed above the middle, the lobes and apex of the leaves tapering to a 

 thick macro or point; heads few, peduncled; involucral scales linear, subulate, puberulous; 

 ligules in two series, double the width of the disc, white. (De Candolle's Prodromus 

 Sysiematis naturalis 7-egni vegetabilis, vol. v., p. 285.) 



E have here a plant which has had no popular history, nor 

 hitherto any history at all in connection with the Flora 

 of the United States, for it is only recently that it has been 

 known as growing within our territory; and for this knowledge 

 we are indebted to the botanists of the Cambridge Botanic 

 Garden, Mass., from whence was obtained the specimen from 

 which the drawing was made. As it is not described in any 

 American work at hand, we have taken our description from De 

 Candolle, who first named and described it in 1836 from living 

 plants grown in one of the European Botanic Gardens from 

 seeds received from Mexico. Though with so little already 

 known of it, we are glad to have the opportunity of figuring it, 

 as it offers many excellent lessons both in botany and in beauty. 

 It is of course understood by most students of plants that 

 every part is made up or grows out of some other part; but it 

 is not so well understood, though it is believed to be as true, that 

 one species is made up or grows out of some other species. The 

 knowledge of the first consdtutes morphology; the second study 

 is known as the doctrine of evolution. Our present species, 



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