CHRYSOPSTS MARIANA. 



MARYLAND GOLD E N S T A R . 



NATURAL ORDER, COMPOSITE [ASTERACE/E OF LINDLEY) 



Chrysopsis Mariana, Nuttall. — Perennial ; stem one to two feet high, simple, covered with 

 loose silky deciduous hairs; lowest leaves spatulate-oblong, entire or slightlj 

 the upper ones lanceolate, sessile, entire; corymb small, mostly simple and umbellate, 

 cone-like in the bud; peduncles and involucre glandular. (Chapman' 

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

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



HE natural orders into which plants are divided have, 

 with but few exceptions, been named from some repre- 

 sentative genus belonging to them. Thus the order of Rosacea 

 received its name from Rosa, or the Rose Family ; Ranuncu- 

 lacecz from Ranunculus, the Crowfoot Family; and so on. 

 Among the exceptions alluded to, the order which embr 

 Chrysopsis Mariana is generally found ; for it is called Compo- 

 site? by most botanists, not from any of the genera belonging to 

 it, but rather as descriptive of the compound character of its 

 flowers, each flower, although having the appearance of but a 

 single one, being in reality composed of an aggregate of a num- 

 ber of florets or small flowers, all placed on one common n 

 tacle. Dr. Lindley, however, a well-known English writer on 

 botany, endeavored to secure uniformity in this respect, and in 

 his book entitled "The Vegetable Kingdom," he therefore 

 dropped the few exceptional names, and replaced them by 

 others modelled on the general rule. To the old order I 

 posilcz he gave the name of Asteracea^ from the large and 

 brated arenus Aster, which belongs to it. Most modem i> >tanists, 

 indeed, do not seem to have adopted Dr. Lindley's views, 



