HELIOPSIS L^VIS. 

 FALSE SUN-FLOWER. 



NATURAL ORDER, COMPOSIT/E, 



Heijopsis L^VIS, Persoon. — Smootli ; stem slender, branching; leaves ovate to ovate-lance- 

 olate, acute cr acuminate, sharply serrate, three-ribbed at the base, on slender petioles ; 

 peduncles elongated ; heads many-flowered, the ray flowers pistillate, those of the diik 

 tubular, perfect, five-toothed ; rays deciduous; scales of the involucre obtuse, in two to 

 three rows, the exterior longer, leafy ; chaff" of the conical receptacle lanceolate, partly 

 clasping the smooth four-angled truncated achenia ; pappus none. Stem two to three 

 feet high. Leaves two to three inches long, sometimes scabrous. [Chapman'' s Floi-a of the 

 Southern United States. See also Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern United 

 States, and Wood's Class -Book of Botany.) 



HIS very showy Asteraceous plant has very httle history 

 in the popular sense of the term. Our text-books tell 

 us that its common name is " ox-eye," and it might be supposed 

 that some popular idea was connected with this appellation. But 

 we do not find that the people have this or any common name 

 for it ; and on examination we find that " ox-eye " is rather a 

 common generic term, applied to a collection of species once 

 included under the old genus BtipJithaliniim, a name derived 

 from the Greek, and which literally means "ox-eye." In the 

 time of Linnaeus our plant was known as BuphtJialmum heli- 

 aiitJwides, or sun-flower leaved ox-eye; and we can thus see 

 how it derived the name proposed for it in our American works. 

 The true distinction between it and BuphtJialmiLm was first per- 

 ceived by Christian Henry Persoon, and the plant was described 

 by hiin as Hdiopsis in 1806, the name being made up of two 

 Greek words signifying like the sun, and evidently suggested by 

 its old specific name helianthoides. As ox-eye is still retained as 



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