770 coMPosiTAE (composite family) 



gradually diminishing into leaf-like bracts, which exceed the lower short-pedi- 

 celed flowers; calyx-tube ovoid ; corolla only 3-4 mm. long. — Dry open fields 

 and thickets. — Plant poisonous and a noted quack medicine. 



++ ^_H ++ Stem scape-like^ mostly simple, holloio ; leaves fleshy ; fihrous-rooted 

 perennials, very glabrous, mostly aquatic, with pale blue or whitish flowers. 



12. L. palud5sa Nutt. Nearly smooth ; stem slender, 0.3-1.2 m. high ; leaves 

 flat, scattered near the base, linear-spatulate or oblong-linear, glandular-denticu- 

 late, mostly tapering into a petiole ; lower lip of corolla bearded in the middle ; 

 calyx-tube about half the length of the short lobes, hemispherical in fruit. — 

 In water (but foliage emerging), Del. to Fla. and La. 



13. L. Dortmanna L. (Water Lobelia.) Very smooth ; scape thickish, 

 1-5 (or in deep water even 9) dm. high, few-flowered ; leaves all tufted at the 

 base, linear, terete, hollow, with a partition lengthwise ; lower lip of corolla 

 slightly hairy; calyx-tube about as long as the lobes, in fruit much longer. — 

 Borders of ponds (often immersed), Nfd. to N. J., Pa., and north westw. (Eu.) 



C0MP6SITAE (Composite Family) 



Flowers in a close head (the compound flower of the older botanists), on a 

 common receptacle, surrounded by an involucre, with 5 (rarely 4) stamens in- 

 serted on the corolla, their anthers united in a tube (syngenesious). Calyx-tube 

 miited with the 1-celled ovary, the limb (called a pappus) crowning its summit 

 in the form of bristles, awns, scales, teeth, etc., or cup-shaped, or else entirely 

 absent. Corolla either strap-shaped or tubular ; in the latter chiefly 5-lobed, 

 valvate in the bud, the veins bordering the margins of the lobes. Style 2-cleft 

 at the apex (in sterile flowers usually entire). Fruit seed-like (achene), dry, 

 containing a single erect anatropous seed, with no albumen. — An immense 

 family, in temperate regions chiefly herbs, without stipules, with perfect, polyga- 

 mous, monoecious, or dioecious flowers. The flowers with a strap-shaped 

 (ligulate) corolla are called rays or ray-flowers ; the head which presents such 

 flowers, either throughout or at the margin, is radiate. The tubular flowers 

 compose the disk ; and a head which has no ray -flowers is said to be discoid. 

 When the head contains two sorts of flowers it is said to be heterogamous ; when 

 only one sort, homogamous. The leaves of the involucre, of whatever form or 

 texture, are termed bracts. The bracts or scales, which often grow on the re- 

 ceptacle among the flowers, are called the chaff; when these are wanting, the 

 receptacle is said to be naked. The largest family of phaenogamous plants. 

 The genera are divided by the corolla into three series, only two of which are 

 represented in our region. The first is much the larger. 



Series I. TUBULIFL6RAE 



Corolla tubular in all the perfect flowers, regularly 5(rarely 3-4)-lobed, ligu- 

 late only in the marginal or ray-flowers, which when present are either pistillate 

 only, or neutral (with neither stamens nor pistil). 



Tribe I. VERNONIEAE. Heads discoid ; the flowers all alike, perfect and tubular, never yellow. 

 Branches of the style long and slender, terete, thread-shaped, minutely bristly-hairy all over. 

 Leaves alternate or scattered. 



1. Vernonia. Heads several-many-flowered, separate. Involucre of many bracts. Pappus 



double, the inner capillary, the outer of minute chaffy bristles. 



2. Elephantopus. Heads 2-r)-flowered, several crowded together into a compound head. In- 



volucre of 8 bracts. Pappus of several chaffy bristles. 



