Cnicus. COMPOSITE. 419 



* 



Var. ochrocentrus, Gray. Leaves deeply pinnatifid and exceedingly armed 

 with slender yellowish prickles : scales of the involucre broader and flatter, destitute 

 of glutinous spot or ridge, and armed with a long and rigid prickle. Cirsium 

 ochrocentrum, Gray, PL Fendl. 110. 



Open grounds, from the upper Mississippi and from Texas to the coast of Oregon, from which 

 the ordinary form probably extends into the northern part of California. Var. ochroccntrus, a 

 mostly southern variety affecting arid districts, generally very distinct in character, reaches the 

 Sierra Nevada at Silver Mountain, where it was collected by Prof. Brewer. 



4- -4- Involucre narrower, becoming campanulate or cylindraceous ; its scales fewer and 

 less closely imbricated, thinner and chartaceous, gradually longer, more tapering 

 into the prickle or prickly point : flowers carmine or purple-red : anther-tips merely 

 acute. 



5. C. Arizonicus, Gray, 1. c. White-woolly, leafy to the top, 2 to 4 feet high, 

 branching and bearing several short-peduncled or sessile heads : leaves lanceolate, 

 pectinately toothed or pinnatifid, slender-spiny : outer scales of the involucre ovate- 

 oblong, the next lanceolate and rather abruptly narrowed into a prickly-tipped 

 acumination : lobes of the corolla fully twice the length of the throat : stigmatic tip 

 of the style short. 



Common in Arizona and S. Utah ; most likely inhabiting the southeastern borders of our State. 

 Heads 1^ to 2 inches long, apparently oblong or cylindraceous before expansion, the involucre 

 becoming campanulate. "Flowers bright carmine" or "bright red-purple." Filaments spar- 

 ingly hairy or sometimes almost glabrous. Anther-tips remarkably blunt. Stigmatic summit 

 of the style only half a line or in age a line long above the manifest node, much shorter than in 

 any other of our indigenous North American species. 



6. C. Anders onii, Gray, 1. c. Slender, 2 or 3 feet high, sparsely leaved, the 

 white wool rather cobwebby and deciduous : leaves mostly pinnatifid and moder- 

 ately prickly-toothed : heads naked-peduncled : scales of the campanulate involucre 

 less unequal and in fewer series than in any of the foregoing, somewhat loose ; the 

 outer rather narrowly lanceolate and the succeeding more subulate, gradually taper- 

 ing into a short prickly point ; the innermost very long and slender : lobes of the 

 corolla not longer than the throat. 



Sierra Nevada, from Tulare Co. to Carson City and Donner Lake, Anderson, Torrey, Bo- 

 landcr. Head 2 inches long. Flowers crimson-red. Tips of the appendages of the anthers trian- 

 gular, either acute or acutish. Stigmatic tip to the style filiform and moderately elongated ; 

 node obsolete. 



2. Scales of the involucre of almost equal or moderately unequal length, all but the 

 innermost tapering gradually into a long marginless and mostly greenish and 

 spreading or ascending usually spiny-tipped acumination. 



* Heads large (mostly 2 inches high) : flowers crimson : involucre densely long-woolly 

 when young ; the scales tapering gradually from a short coriaceous appressed base 

 into long and slender but rigid spreading spinescent tips. 



1. C. occidentalis, Gray, 1. c. Very white with long and dense wool, 2 to 5 

 feet high, stout : leaves lanceolate and the lowest oblong, sinuate-pinnatifid or the 

 upper merely toothed, rather weak-prickly, the upper surface often becoming naked 

 with age : involucre globose ; its scales with very long and slender rigid mostly 

 subulate or almost needle-shaped and merely prickly-pointed tips, the lowermost 

 usually widely spreading : corollas bright crimson or purple-red, regularly 5-cleft ; 

 the lobes one and a half to twice the length of the throat : tips of the anther-append- 

 ages triangular-acuminate. Cardnus occidentalis, Nutt. 1. c., with erroneous char- 

 acter. Cirsium Coidteri, Gray, PI. Wright, ii. 110 ; Eaton in Bot. King Exp. 195. 



Open grounds, not rare apparently throughout the State, and within the borders of Nevada. 

 A striking species, with its white cottony wool, and large and broad heads of bright red flowei-s. 

 Heads 2 inches high, or sometimes considerably less. Scales of the involucre an inch and a half 

 or less in length, mostly retaining the dense and long cobwebby wool. Flowers an inch and a 



