384 COMPOSITE. Monolopia. 



Var. lanceolata, Gray, is merely a state with the scales of the involucre sepa- 

 rate down almost to the base, and the akenes perhaps uniformly puberulent. 

 M. lanceolata, Nutt. PI. Gamb. 175. 



Common through the central part of the State, and from San Francisco Bay to San Diego. 

 The variety about Los Angeles, &c., Nuttall, Parry, Brewer. Also on the San Joaquin, Fremmit. 

 Leaves 1 to 4 inches long ; the lower ones not rarely opposite. Heads pretty large. Kays 

 about 10, from a third to a full inch long, proportionally broad, with base abruptly contracted 

 into a short and slender tube. Akenes a line to a line and a half long. It is through some mis- 

 take, as the specimens and original description show, that Bentham refers Nuttall's M. lanceolata 

 to Bahia arachnoidea. It is really a state rather than a varicty.of M. riiajor. 



71. LASTHENIA, Cass. 



Head many-flowered, with 5 to 15 pistillate rays; all the flowers fertile. Invo- 

 lucre a single series of herbaceous scales, united by their edges almost to their tips 

 into a 5- 15-toothed campanulate or hemispherical cup. Eeceptacle conical, naked, 

 muricate or papillose with projecting points which bear the akenes. Rays very 

 short and included, obliquely truncate, or in one species large and exserted : disk- 

 corollas with narrow tube and campanulate or cyathiform 4 5-lobed limb. An- 

 thers tipped with small ovate or oblong appendages. Style-branches capitate-truncate 

 or obtuse. Akenes linear or linear-oblong, compressed (the faces hardly if at all 

 angled or obviously costate), their terminal areola large, bearing a pappus of 5 to 10 

 firm and thickish mostly subulate-pointed scales nearly as long as the disk-corolla, 

 or in one species none. Slender (Western American) annuals, green and gla- 

 brous or nearly so, somewhat succulent ; with the linear and mostly entire leaves 

 opposite (even to the uppermost), sessile and more or less connate at the base ; the 

 heads of yellow flowers on terminal peduncles, which are more or less thickened at 

 the summit, sometimes nodding. The first section is intermediate between the 

 genuine LastJienia and Monolopia. 



1. Rays ample and conspicuous, numerous: akenes linear-oblong, wholly destitute 



of pappus. HOLOGYMNE. 



1. L. glabrata, Lindl. A span to 2 feet high, simple or branched from the 

 base and diffuse, glabrous or slightly pubescent : leaves sometimes one-toothed 

 or lobed on each side (1 to 3 inches long, 1 to 3 lines wide) : involucre 10 - 15- 

 toothed : rays oval, 2 - 3-toothed at the end : disk-corollas as long as the glabrous 

 akene, their lobes sparsely papillose-barbellate outside (as in Monolopia}. L. Cali- 

 fornica & glabrata, Lindl. Bot. Keg. t. 1780, & t. 1823. Hologymne glabrata, 

 Bartling. ; Hook. Bot. Mag. t. 3730. Monolopia glabrata, Fischer & Meyer. 



Low grounds, common from Mendocino Co. and San Francisco Bay to Santa Barbara. In the 

 larger forms showy ; the expanded ray becoming an inch or more in diameter. 



2. Corollas short ; the feiv and very short rays wholly inconspicuous, not exceeding 

 the disk-flowers, little surpassing the pappus. True LASTHENIA. 



2. L. glaberrima, DC. Low, with stems weak or decumbent, a span or two 

 long : leaves rather succulent, entire (an inch or two long, a line or two broad) : 

 involucre broad, about 15-toothed : corollas shorter than the rather broadly linear 

 and minutely pubescent akenes, their lobes naked : pappus of 5 to 10 firm chaffy 

 scales, 2 or 3 of them subulate-pointed or short-awned, the others mostly lacini- 

 ately cleft or erose. 



Wet meadows, along or near the coast, from Monterey? to Mendocino Co., "and Oregon. 

 Involucre about 3 lines high. Receptacle broadly conical. Ours is not very different from the 

 Chilian species, the only remaining one of the genus. 



