Wyethia. COMPOSITE. 349 



more truncate and produced (at tne angles) into 1 to 4 chaffy rigid awns. Peren- 

 nial herbs ; with simple (rarely branching) stems from a stout root, rootstock, or 

 caudex, alternate mostly entire and ample leaves, and solitary or few and large or 

 middle-sized heads of yellow flowers. ISTutt. Jour. Acad. Philad. vii. 38, & Trans. 

 Am. Phil. Soc. 1. c. 351 ; Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. viii. 654. Alarconia, DC. Prodr. 



A genus of several species, all natives of the region between the Rocky Mountains and the 

 Pacific ; dedicated by Nuttall to Captain Wyeth, with whom he afterwards crossed the continent, 

 and by De Candolle, two years later, to Hernando de Alarcon, a noble Spanish navigator who first 

 (in 1540) visited and surveyed the coast of California. It is to be regretted that the genus cannot 

 commemorate one of the earliest explorers of the country : but the name may designate a section. 



1. Akenes thick, obtusely quadrangular, crowned with a conspicuous calyx-like pap- 

 pus of ovate or lanceolate coriaceous teeth more or less united at base into a 

 cup : heads very large and broad (the disk 1 \ to 2 inches in diameter) ; invo- 

 lucre open and leafy. ALARCONIA, Gray. 



1. W. helenioides, Nutt. Soft-tomentose, or with age becoming almost gla- 

 brous, a foot or two high : leaves oblong or oval ; radical ones a foot or more long, 

 4 to 6 inches Avide ; cauline about half the size, all contracted at base into a short 

 petiole : heads mostly leafy at base : outer scales of the involucre ovate-lanceolate or 

 ovate, sometimes toothed : akenes more or less pubescent at top when young. 

 Gray, PI. Fendl. 82. Alarconia helenioides, DC. Melarhiza inuloides, Kellogg. 



Hillsides ; common near San Francisco and through the valley of the Sacramento. Akenes 

 half an inch and the pappus 2 or 3 lines long. Teeth of the corolla ovate-lanceolate, somewhat 

 hairy outside. 



2. W. glabra, Gray. Green and glabrous throughout, minutely resinous-glan- 

 dular or viscid : leaves otherwise as in the preceding, or more commonly toothed, 

 and the upper perhaps narrower : akenes and pappus glabrous, the lobes of the lat- 

 ter minutely ciliate. Proc. Am. Acad. vi. 543. 



Hillsides, San Luis Obispo to Marin Co. (A specimen from Bolander's collection is said to 

 come fiom Mount Dana, at 12,000 feet ; but some error is to be suspected.) Heads nearly as 

 large and leafy as in W. liclcnioidcs, the bracts or leafy involucral scales often surpassing the 

 rays. Disk-corolla with ovate wholly glabrous teeth. Foliage said to have a viscid exudation 

 of agreeable odor. 



2. Akenes less thick, and with acute angles, at least those of the disk laterally com- 

 pressed : heads less large. True WYETHIA. 



* Involucre hemispherical or broader : pappus short and awnless. 



3. W. ovata, Gray. Tomentose with soft pubescence : stem 2 feet or more 

 high (apparently from running rootstocks), leafy, occasionally branching : leaves 

 broadly ovate or the larger somewhat cordate, acute or acuminate, 3 to 6 inches 

 long, all petioled : involucre an inch in diameter ; its scales broadly lanceolate, 

 seldom equalling the disk-flowers, mostly with a coriaceous erect base and more 

 or less spreading acuminate herbaceous summit : akenes linear-oblong (about 4 lines 

 long), minutely pubescent, crowned with a pappus of 6 or 8 short and broad 

 unequal chaffy teeth, all of them somewhat united at the base. Proc. Am. Acad. 

 vii. 357. 



Dry hillsides, Mariposa Co., from the foot-hills to above the Yosemite, Bridges, Bolander, &c. 

 Rays 10 to 24, about an inch long. 



* * Involucre narrow, of rather few erect scales: pappus 1 Pawned. 



4. "W. mollis, Gray. Tomentose with very soft white wool, which is partly 

 deciduous with age : stems 2 or 3 feet high, often branching above and bearing 2 to 

 4 racemose naked heads, rather leafy : leaves oblong or sometimes ovate, 3 to 9 

 inches long, becoming rigid and prominently reticulated, contracted at base into the 



