Taraxacum.'] composite. 193 



Among the ruins of an old house, Champion. Widely spread over the temperate and 

 colder regions of the northern hemisphere ; and a troublesome weed in altoost all cultivated 

 parts of the world. 



39. IXERIS, Cass. 



Involucre cylindi-ical, of a single row of nearly equal bracts, with a few 

 small outer ones. Receptacle naked. Aclienes oblong, slightly flattened, 

 with prominent ribs, not muricate, tapering into a slender beak, with a pappus 

 of very soft usually white simple hairs. — Flower-heads small, florets seldom 

 above 25, yellow in the Hongkong species. 



A small Asiatic genus, scarcely differing from the beaked Crepises (or Barkhausias), in the 

 rather more flattened and more prominently ribbed achenes. 



Stem erect, paniculate. Flower-heads numerous, 3 or 4 lines long. 



Leaves oblong, toothed, lyrate or piunatifid 1. /. ramnsissima. 



Leaves few, linear, mostly entire 2. /. versicolor. 



Stem creeping. Flower-heads about 6 lines long. 



Leaves oblong or lanceolate, entire or slightly piunatifid . . . . 3. /. debilis. 



Leaves ovate, mostly 3-lobed or in 3 segments 4. /. repens. 



1. I. ramosissima, A. Gray, in Mem. Acad. Amer. vi. 397. A glabrous 

 erect much-branched perennial, 1 to 2 ft. (or more ?) high. Leaves from 

 oval to oblong or lanceolate, sinuately toothed, lyrate or pinnatifld, 2 to 4 in. 

 long, the lower ones naiTowed into a long petiole scarcely clasping the stem 

 with minute auricles, the upper ones sessile, embracing the stem with broad 

 rounded toothed auricles. Flow^er-heads in dense terminal corymbs, forming 

 a large leafy panicle. Involucre about 4 lines long, of 6 to 8 inner bracts 

 and a very few minute outer ones. Achenes scarcely compressed ; the ribs 

 slightly prominent and minutely tubercidate. — BracJiyrainphus ramosissimus, 

 Benth. in Lond. Journ. Bot, i. 489. Dubycea ramosissima, Hance in Walp. 

 Ann. ii. 1028. 



Hongkong, JTinds, Champion; near Say wan, Hance ; in a ravine on Mount Parker, U'il- 

 ford ; also Wright. Not known from elsewhere. 



2. I. versicolor, DC. Prod. vii. 151. A glabrous perennial, 6 in. to 

 1 ft. high, with a slender, horizontal, perhaps creeping root-stock. Leaves 

 chiefly radical, stalked, linear or linear-oblong, 3 to 4 in. long, entii-e or rarely 

 remotely toothed ; stem-leaves few and sessile, or sometimes stem- clasping. 

 Flower-heads smaU, in a loose slender corymbose leafless panicle. Involucre 

 about 3 lines long, of about 8 equal bracts, with a few minute external ones. 

 Achenes slightly compressed, with prominent nerves, slightly muricate, the 

 beak about their own length. — BarkJiausia tenella, Benth. in Loud. Journ. 

 Bot. i. 488. 



Hongkong, Hinds, Hance, Wilford. Also on the Chinese continent, and northwards to 

 Dahuria, where the florets are sometimes pink. In Hongkong they are always yellow. 

 The Lactuca gracilis, DC, which we have from various parts of the mount aius of norther a 

 India, appears to be a slight variety of the same sjiecies, with rather smaller flower-heads 

 and fewer florets. 



3. I. debilis, A. Gray in Mnn. Amer. Acad. vi. 397. A glabrous and 

 glaucous perennial, with shortly creeping leafy runners. Leaves mostly radical, 

 stalked, oblong-lanceolate when in open sandy places, sometimes almost o})ovate, 

 and only 1 to 2 in. long; when in grassy banks, 6 in. to 1 ft. long, very 



o 



