Bcdsamorhiza. COMPOSITE. 347 



43. BUDBECKIA, Linn. CONE-FLOWER. 



Head many-flowered, heterogamous, with neutral ray-flowers, rarely homogamous 

 by the absence of these ; disk-flowers perfect. Involucre of foliaceous commonly 

 unequal scales in one or two series, mostly spreading. Receptacle remarkably ele- 

 vated, in ours columnar, at least at maturity, so that the perfect flowers are spicate ; 

 each flower subtended or partly embraced by a chaif. Rays long and nearly entire. 

 Disk-corollas cylindraceous, 5-toothed. Akenes quadrangular and mostly laterally 

 compressed, smooth, crowned (in our species) with a persistent chaff-like cup or 4 

 chaffy teeth more or less united into a cup. Chiefly perennial herbs, with alternate 

 leaves, disk-flowers from dark brown to greenishyellow, and mostly yellow rays ; 

 all North American, but only two west of the Rocky Mountains. 



1. R. Californica, Gray. Stem simple, about 3 feet high, 3-5-leaved, the 

 long and naked peduncle-like summit bearing a single large head : leaves finely 

 soft-pubescent, 3 to 5 inches long, varying from ovate to oblong-lanceolate, acumi- 

 nate, pinnately veined, somewhat toothed ; the middle ones sometimes with a pair 

 of lateral lanceolate lobes at base ; uppermost sessile ; lower tapering into a slender 

 petiole : scales of the involucre linear : rays 2 or 3 inches long, narrowly oblong, 

 yellow : disk columnar, one or two inches long, dusky brownish : akenes com- 

 pressed-prismatic, 2 lines long, crowned with a pappus of 4 irregular thickish chaffy 

 teeth more or less united at base into a cup. Proc. Am. Acad. vii. 357. 



Wet grassy places in the Sierra Nevada : at the Mariposa grove, Bolander. Previously col- 

 lected by Bridges, perhaps in the same district. 



R. OCCIDENTALIS, Nutt., of Oregon and Utah, differs in its smooth and more numerous as well 

 as broader leaves, and has no rays at all. 



44. BALSAMORHIZA, Hook., Nutt. BALSAM-ROOT. 



Head many-flowered, heterogamous, with fertile ray-flowers, and perfect disk- 

 flowers. Involucre hemispherical or broader, of more or less imbricated scales, the 

 outer loose and herbaceous or often foliaceous. Receptacle flat or barely convex, 

 with linear-lanceolate chaff (often with herbaceous tips), subtending and partly 

 embracing the disk-flowers. Rays oblong or lanceolate, with short tube (deciduous 

 except in one species) : disk-corollas cylindrical. Branches of the style of perfect 

 flowers slender, hispid throughout or on the long filiform appendages. Akenes of 

 the ray obcompressed (i. e. flattened parallel with the scales) and oblong, of the disk 

 prismatic-quadrangular or more or less compressed. Pappus none. Low peren- 

 nials of Western North America, mostly of the arid plains ; with thick terebinthine 

 roots, chiefly radical leaves, and scape-like stems ; the few cauline leaves alternate 

 or occasionally opposite, and the rather large head of yellow flowers commonly soli- 

 tary. (Named from the resin or balsam of the root.) 



The thick roots, or tubers, from which sometimes the turpentine-tasted resinous bark is peeled, 

 are cooked for food by the Indians, especially in Oregon, under the names of Push, Kuyoum, &c. 

 The seeds are also eaten. Besides the species here described, 



B. (KALLIACTIS) CAREYANA, Gray, of the interior of Oregon, forms a peculiar subgenus, having 

 rays which become papery, like those of a Zinnia, and persist on the fruit ; the akenes are cinere- 

 ous-pubescent and all quadrangular, those of the ray less flattened (obcompressed) than is com- 

 mon in the genus. The stem, moreover, bears several heads. 



B. MACROHHYLLA, Nutt., of the Rocky Mountain region only, is a genuine species, near the 

 variable B. Hookcri, and like it with leaves both undivided and pinnately parted on the same 

 root ; but these or their divisions are entire, almost glabrous and smooth, and the involucre is 

 generally foliaceous. 



