222 THE TEASEL FAMILt. 



Europe and Russian Asia to the Arctic Circle. Abundant in Britain. 

 Fl. all sitmmer. 



XLIII. COMPOSITE. THE COMPOSITE FAMILY. 

 Herbs, or in some exotic genera or species, shrubs, with alter- 

 nate or opposite leaves, without stipules. Flowers or florets 

 collected several together into a head surrounded by an invo- 

 lucre, the whole having the appearance of a single flower, and 

 called by older authors a compound flower, with a common calyx. 

 The receptacle, or enlarged summit of the peduncle on which 

 the florets are inserted within the involucre, either bears chaffy 

 scales and hairs between the florets or is naked. In each floret 

 the calyx is combined with the ovary, either completely so or 

 only appears at its summit as a short border, or more frequently 

 as a pappus: that is, a ring of long, simple or feathery 

 (plumose) hairs or bristles, or of small chaffy scales. Corollas 

 either all tubular, with a 5-toothed (or rarely 4-toothed) border, 

 or. all ligulate: that is to say, flat, linear or oblong, forming 

 only a short tube at the base ; or else both kinds are in the 

 same head, the central ones tubular, forming the disk ; the outer 

 ones ligulate, constituting the ray. In the latter case the head 

 of flowers is said to be radiate, and in contradistinction a head 

 of flowers that has no ray is said to be discoid, and one which 

 has no disk is said to be ligulate. Stamens 5 or rarely 4, in- 

 serted in the tube of the corolla ; the anthers linear and united 

 in a sheath round the style. Ovary inferior, with a single erect 

 ovule, and a filiform style divided at the top into two short 

 branches bearing the stigmas. Fruit a small, dry, seed-like 

 nut, usually called an achene, crowned by the pappus or some- 

 times naked. 



The most extensive family among flowering plants, and represented 

 in every quarter of the globe and in every description of station. It is 

 also most easily recognised. The ligular florets are unknown in any 

 other family, and when the florets are all tubular, Composites are dis- 

 tinguished from Dipsacece, and the few others which have similar heads 

 of florets, by the union of the anthers. In Jasione indeed the anthers 

 are slightly united, but there, besides other characters, the ovary and 

 capsule have two cells with several seeds. The genera are very 

 numerous, and the characters -are often taken from differences in the 

 achenes and in the pappus which crowns them, which cannot well be 

 observed until the fruit is ripe. It is therefore particularly necessary, 

 in Compofitcc, in collecting specimens for determination, to gather such 

 as have the most advanced flower- heads, and these will always be found 

 in the centre of the corymb. 



