2GO LXXVIII. COMPOSITE. (J. D. Hooker.) \_Blumea. 



TRIBE IV. INULOIDE2E. 

 26. BXiTTBXEA, DC. 



Annual or perennial, glandular pubescent or woolly herbs. Leaves alternate, 

 usually toothed or lobed. Heads corymbose panicled or fascicled, rarely ra- 

 cemed, heterogamous, disciform, purple rosy or yellow ; outer fl. oo -seriate, $ , 

 fertile, filiform, 2-3-toothed ; disk.-fl. Q , few, fertile, tubular, slender, limb 

 6-toothed. Involiicre ovoid or campanulate ; bracts oo -seriate, narrow, acute, 

 soft or herbaceous, outer smaller ; receptacle flat, naked. Anther-bases sagittate, 

 tails small, slender. Style-arms of ^ flattened or almost filiform, rarely con- 

 nate with the adjoining anthers. Achen.es small, subterete or angled, ribbed 

 or not; pappus 1-seriate, slender, often caducous. DISTRIB. Species about 60, 

 tropical and subtropical Asiatic, African and Australian. 



This genus is eminently characteristic of India, and the species may be called the 

 Groundsels of that country. There is no more unsatisfactory genus than this ; it is 

 distinguished from Laggera only by the tailed anther-cells, and this is not a very con- 

 stant character, the anthers of some states of B. virens having no tails, whilst forms 

 of Laggera have them ; Kurz, indeed, suggests (with much probability) that some 

 Laggeras are sexual forms of Blumeas. Clarke finds generally in Blumea, that func- 

 tionally $ heads occur, the disk-flowers, though $ in form, having only rudimentary 

 stamens, and that in the case of the common B. oxyodonta he has never found 

 perfect flowers, nor has Kurz. The divisions of the Genus here proposed are 

 most unsatisfactory, and I fear that the specific diagnoses are not much better. The 

 glabrous or pubescent receptacle is very difficult to see ; the size of the head is 

 tolerably constant ; the form and number of the invol. bracts are difficult to describe ; 

 the very minute achenes are tolerably uniform ; the foliage is sportive to an extra- 

 ordinary degree, as is the pubescence ; gland-hairs are common to most species, but 

 the amount varies with the dryness of the locality. I have not been able to follow 

 Clarke's disposition of the species at all closely, they want a careful study in situ, and 

 under cultivation. 



SECT. 1. Heads few, small, - in. diam., solitary or 2 and ped uncled at the 

 tjnds of the branches. Small, annual herbs, erect or prostrate ; flowers yellow. 



1. B. amplectens, DC. in Wight Contrib. 13; Prodr. v. 483; sparsely 

 softly hairy or glabrous, divaricate branches spreading from the base, leaves 

 ^-1 in. ^-amplexicaul oblong or obovate obtuse or acute coarsely toothed, heads 

 solitary on the branchlets peduncled \-% in. diam., invol. bracts very slender 

 inner hair-pointed, recept. glabrous, corolla yellow, lobes of > hairy, achenes 

 oblong, pappus reddish. Clarke Comp. Ind. 71 ; Dalz. fy Gibs. Bomb. Fl. 125 ; 

 Thwaites num. 163 partly (C. P. 1730). Oonyza amplectens, Wall. Cat. 3096. 

 C. obliqua, Willd. Sp. PL iii. 1930. C. amplexicaulis, Lamk. Diet. ii. 84. 

 Erigeron obliquum, Linn. Mant. 



CENTRAL INDIA and WESTERN PENINSULA ; abundant in BENGAL, chiefly near the 

 coast and CEYLON. 



The following varieties are according to Clarke, they are with difficulty limitable. 



VAR. 1. typica ; softly hairy or glabrate, leaves oblong toothed. 



VAR. 2. arenaria, leaves obovate-oblong sparingly toothed usually more villous 

 beneath. B. arenaria, DC. in Wight. Contrib. 13; Prodr. v. 433. Conyza villosa, 

 Wall. Cto/3105. 



VAR. 3. pubiflora, leaves toothed, peduncles stout, heads large ^ in. B. pubiflora, 

 DC. Prodr. v. 434. Erigeron asteroides, Wall. Cat. 2975, B. Extends to Bundelkund 

 and N.W. India. 



VAR. 4. maritima ; bushy, glabrous, glandular, leaves small, heads large. Near 

 the sea, Andaman Islds., Pegu, Soonderbunds and round the coast to Scinde. 



VAR. 5. tenella ; almost glabrous. 



