Pectis. COMPOSITE. 399 





rigid scabrous capillary bristles, about the length of the corolla. Herbs, sometimes 

 with ligneous base, glabrous and often glaucous ; with slender branches terminated 

 by pedunculate heads of yellow, whitish, or purplish flowers, and alternate or below 

 opposite leaves ; these and the scales of the involucre marked by scattered immersed 

 oil-glands, in the manner of Tagetes, &c., therefore strong-scented. 



Species all American, chiefly of Mexico and farther south, a few along the borders of the 

 United States, two in Lower California, but only the following within the State. 



1. P. gracile, Benth. Slender, loosely much branched from a rather woody 

 base, a foot or two high : lower leaves linear with tapering base, the upper nearly 

 filiform or slender-subulate : scales of the involucre 4 to 6, oblong-linear, obtuse, 

 with narrow scarious margins: head 5 - 15-flowered : akenes scabrous-pnberulent, 

 narrowed at the summit. Bot. Sulph. 29. P. Greggii, var. minor, Gray. 



Gravelly banks, Fort Aloha ve and southward (Dr. Cooper, &c.), San Diego, Cleveland. Heads 

 three quarters of an inch long : flowers "purple" or "dirty white." Herbage with a strong 

 fragrant or fennel-like odor. According to Mr. Johnson, who collected it on the Colorado River, 

 it is there called " Poison-flower." 



88. PECTIS, Linn. 



Head several-many-flowered, with pistillate rays; the flowers all fertile. Involucre 

 cylindrical or campanulate, of a few equal and mostly carinate-concave scales in a single 

 series. Eeceptacle small, naked. Rays entire or 2- 3-toothed at the apex : disk-corollas 

 mostly slender, 5-toothed, sometimes unequally. Style long, somewhat thickened up- 

 wards and minutely hispid ; the branches very short and obtuse or truncate. Akenes 

 linear or filiform, many-striate. Pappus of few or rather numerous bristles, or some- 

 times of a few awns, with or without some small chaffy scales, sometimes in some 

 or all the flowers of little scales only, these united into a crown. Low odorous 

 herbs (all American) ; with opposite narrow and chiefly entire leaves, their margins 

 beset with some long bristles, at least toward the base, in their substance as in that 

 of the involucre bearing some scattered oil-glands. Heads small, or sometimes rather 

 ample for the size of the plant, scattered : flowers yellow. 



P. PUNCTATA, Jacq. (Pectidium, DC.), with its pappus of 3 or 4 very rigid smooth awns, and 

 P. MTJLTISETA, Benth., with a pappus of 2 or 3 bristles or none in the disk, and leaves conspicu- 

 ously bristle-fringed, grow in Lower California. P. PROSTRATA, Cav., with broadish leaves and 

 sessJe hea s, comes into Arizona ; as does P. IMBKUBIS, Gray, a tall species remarkable for the 

 want of bristles to the leaves. The following are attributed to California solely on the authority 

 of Coulter's collection, from which they were first described ; and they may all have been col- 

 lected east of the Rio Colorado. 



1. P. papposa, Gray. Annual, glabrous, diffusely much branched, a span to a 

 foot high, "lemon-scented" : leaves elongated-linear (2 or 3 inches long, less than a 

 line wide), furnished with very few bristles at base : heads slender-peduncled, scat- 

 tered or corymbose, about 20-flowered : scales of the involucre 6 to 8, linear : rays 

 elongated, linear-oblong : pappus in the ray a scaly crown, in the disk of 15 to 20 

 capillary and very unequal barbellate bristles. PI. Fendl. 62. 



California, Coulter, No. 331. Common in the Gila Valley and through Arizona, Schott, Palmer, 

 Wright, &c. Akenes slender, minutely hirsute with glandular- tipped and sometimes hooked 

 hairs. Scales of the involucre nearly infolding the ray-akenes, as in all our species. 



2. P. Coulteri, Gray, 1. c. Annual, puberulent, diffuse, 2 or 3 inches high : 

 leaves narrowly linear (about half an inch long), sparsely bristle-fringed : heads on 

 peduncles mostly longer than the leaves : scales of the involucre and exserted rays 

 about 5, both oblong : pappus in ray and disk nearly alike, of 2 to 4 short and 

 stout awns which are retrorsely bristly-barbed. 



