1 ;0 IIELIOPSIS L.1£VIS. FALSE SUN-FLOWER. 



the common name for the whole genus BiipJitJmhmnn, under 

 which there are a number of species still known; and as the 

 name of ox-eye for our present species is not in common use, 

 it may be well to drop it, and adopt that of " False Sun-flower," 

 a name more related to its present botanical designation. 



Its botanical characters render it a very welcome plant to the 

 critical student. As compared with other American allies, it is 

 closely related to the true sun-flowers or HeliantJms on one side, 

 and the cone-flower or Riidbcckia on the other. From Hcli- 

 autJuis it will be found to differ in the ray flowers being pistillate 

 and bearing seeds, while those oi HeliantJuis are barren. Then 

 a difference will be found in the chaff or metamorphosed bracts 

 which are on the receptacle at the base of the little florets. In 

 Hcliopsis these are very large, persistent, and embrace and 

 almost wholly enclose the florets (Fig. 5); while in the other 

 genus they are dry and membranous, and easily lall. It is in 

 this long, persistent, pointed chaff, as well as in its oblong, conic 

 receptacle, that it approaches Rudhcckia. Indeed, when the head 

 is dry and the seeds ripe, the resemblance to this genus is very 

 striking. The chaff, however, though persistent in Riidbcckia, is 

 not so hard when dry as in Hcliopsis. In tliis genus the florets 

 or litde flowers are comparatively large, and well formed for 

 study ; and here it may be observed that the multiplication of 

 botanical terms, so necessary for scientific precision in descrip- 

 tion, may often mislead one as to the true character of the part 

 described. We call the flowers of plants like these, compound 

 flowers, and the order which contains them Coiuposita: ; but they 

 are no more compound than those of the Umbellifera^ or Valcn- 

 anacca. In the belief that the head of a composite plant was the 

 flower, the smaller parts became "florets;" or the litde flowers, 

 which go to make up the great flower. But, in fact, the single 

 parts of the head, as Figs. 2, 3, are just as much perfect flowers 

 as any of their more pretentious sisters in other orders would be. 

 In most of the other orders the form of the corolla is well known 

 to vary, and to give much of the character whereby we distin- 



