Pedis. COMPOSITE.. 300 



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



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



by pedunculate heads of yellow, whitish, or purplish llowcrs, and altemnto or below 



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



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



Species all American, chiefly of Mexico and farther south, a few alonj; the honlors of tlio 

 Unitoil .States, two in liowor California, but only the following within tlio Stato. 



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

 base, a foot or two high : lower leaves linear with tapering base, the upj)er nearly 

 filiform or slendcr-subulato : scales of the involucre 4 to G, oblong-linear, obtuse, 

 with narrow scarious margins: head 5 - 15-flo\vered : akenes scabrous-puberulent, 

 narrowed at tlie summit. — Bot. Suli)h. 29. P. Greggii, var. minor, Gray. 



Gi-avelly banks, Fort Mohave anil south waid (Dr. Cooper, &c.), San Diego, Cleveland. Unnds 

 three quarters of an inch long : flowers'" purple " or "dirty wbite." Herbage with a stiong 

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

 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 e([ual and mostly carinate-concave scales in a single 

 series. Receptacle small, naked. I?<ays entire or 2- 3-toothed at the ape.x : disk-corollas 

 mostly slender, 5-toothed, sometimes unequally. Stylo long, somewhat thickened uji- 

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

 linear or filiform, niany-striato. Pappus of few or rather nuMUMous bristles, or some- 

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

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

 herbs (all American) ; with opposite narrow and cliiefly 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 i-ather 

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



P. PUNCTATA, Jnc(|. [Pcctidium, DC), witli its pappus of 3 or 4 very rigid sinonlh awns, atid 

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

 ously bristle-fringed, grow in Lower California. P. riiosruATA, Cav., with broadish leaves nn<l 

 sessile heads, comes into Arizona ; as does P. IMBKiinis, Gray, a inW si)ccips rcninrknblc for the 

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

 of Coulter's collection, from which they were fust described ; and they may nil havo Iweii col- 

 lected east of the Rio Colorado. 



1. P. papposa, Gv^y. Annual, glabrous, diffusely mtich branched, a span to a 

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

 lino wide), furnished with very few bristles at biise : heads slejider-poduncled, scat- 

 tered or coryndjose, about 20-flowcred : scales of the involucre to 8, linear : rays 

 elongated, linear-oblong: pappus in the ray a scaly crown, in th(> disk of IT) to 20 

 cai)illary and very unequal barhcllate bristles. — V\. Fendl. 02. 



California, Coulter, No. 331. Common in the Gila Valley and through Arizona, ScUotI, Pithnrr, 

 Wriyht, &c. Akenes slender, minutely hirsute with Handuhirtipix-d and sometimes hooked 

 hairs. Scales of the involucre nearly infolding the my-akeues, ns in all mw H|>ocies. 



'i. P. Coulterl, (Irny, 1. <i. Annual, puborident, dilfu«e, 2 or 3 iiu;hcH high : 

 leaves narrowly linear (about half an inch long), spai-sely brislle-fringetl : heads on 

 peduncles mostly longer than tlio leaves : scales t>f the involucre and o.XRcrled rays 

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

 stout awns wliich are retrorsely brist]v-harl)ed. 



