MAY. 235 



we notice the blossoms or the colors of the corollas them- 

 selves. Many, too, are inconspicuous, and scarcely attract 

 any other eye than that of the botanist. Tn o'ur autumns it 

 furnishes the very prevalent yellow, which is so apparent in 

 our native blooms, and throughout the year the asteroid 

 species enamel with their various forms the fields and the 

 woods. 



The supposed species of Arctotis under consideration be- 

 longs to the section of the Composita^, which is known as 

 the Cynareag ; a section embracing the universally favorite 

 Calendula of our gardens, the Othonna of the greenhouse, 

 the broadly patulous flowers of the regal Gazama, (a well 

 known greenhouse plant,) the pretty Jeranthemums, the di- 

 versely colored Centaurea, and many other genera exhibiting 

 many different tints and colors in their blossoms. 



The Arctotis calendulacea, PF., resembles so much the 

 marigold, (Calendiila,) that it suggests, at once, that plant. 

 Its foliage, however, is runcinate-pinnatified, somewhat after 

 the style of the dandelion leaf, invested with a shaggy down, 

 with which the succulent stem, externally many-grooved, is 

 also clothed ; and its aspect has a rather coarse appearance, 

 something between a Sonchus on the one hand, and a Borage 

 on the other. The specimen which I received from Messrs. 

 Hovey seemed to be a lateral stem about eight inches in 

 length, bearing such smaller leaves as naturally grow near the 

 flowering part of any plant, and which, half clasping the stem, 

 appeared of a bracte-like character, rather than as giving any 

 just indication of the foliage. The peduncle, which termi- 

 nated in my specimen with a single blossom, was beset with 

 red gland-like hairs easily perceptible ; and the scales of the 

 involucre (calyx) reflexed, were invested in the same long deli- 

 cate white tomentum as invested the leaves themselves. The 

 inner row of the scales of the involucre were tipped with a 

 rich orange color, which was laid on, in a sort of pencilling, 

 somewhat like the same tints in the Gladiolus natalensis. 

 The rays were about twenty in number, an inch or so in 

 length, lanceolate and entire in shape, partially revolute at 

 the open state of the blooming ; and above and beneath were 



