COMPOSITE. (COMPOSITE FAMILY.) 129 



# * Erect from creeping or ascending rootstocks, which emit slender roots : leaves 

 thinnish, loosely veiny, often with some simple and some divided and margins 

 either entire or dentate on same plant ; the radical ones on slender naked peti- 

 oles : corolla white to light rose-color, 



2. V. sylvatica, Banks. Stems from 8 to 30 inches high : radical leaves 

 mostly simple and ovate to oblong, occasionally some 3 to 5-foliolate ; cauline 

 more or less petioled, 3 to ll-foliolate or parted, the divisions entire or rarely 

 few-toothed : fruiting cymes open, at length thyrsoid-paniculate : corolla 2 or 3 

 lines long. V. dioica, var. sylvatica, Gray. Mountains of New Mexico and 

 Arizona, northward and eastward. 



3. V. Sitchensis, Bong. More robust, from thicker and branching as- 

 cending rootstocks : leaves larger ; cauline short-petioled, only 3 to 5-foliolate ; 

 the divisions orbicular to oblong-ovate, or in the upper leaves ovate-lanceolate, 

 not rarely dentate or repand: cymes contracted: corolla fuimelform, 4 lines 

 long. Northern Rocky Mountains and northward. 



ORDER 42. COMPOSITE. (COMPOSITE FAMILY.) 



Flowers in a close head on a common receptacle, surrounded by an 

 involucre, with (5 or 4) stamens inserted on the corolla, their anthers 

 united in a tube. Calyx-tube aduate to the 1- celled ovary, the limb 

 {pappus) crowning its summit in the form of bristles, awns, scales, etc., 

 or even absent. Corolla strap-shaped (ligulate} or tubular. Style 2- 

 cleft. Fruit an akene. The flowers are perfect, monoecious, dioecious, 

 or polygamous. Strap-shaped marginal flowers are the rays ; heads 

 with prominent rays and tubular flowers are radiate ; and a head com- 

 posed entirely of strap-shaped corollas is ligulate. The tubular flowers 

 compose the disk, and a head with no rays is discoid. A head with all 

 its flowers alike as to sex is homogamous, when unlike heterogamous. 

 The leaves of the involucre are scales ; and the bracts or scales which 

 are often found upon the receptacle among the flowers are chaff, and 

 when this is wanting the receptacle is naked. 



Key to the Tribes. 



Ser. I. TUBULIFLOR^:. Corollas tubular and regular in all the hermaph- 

 rodite flowers. 

 Heads homogamous and discoid : flowers all hermaphrodite and never yellow : 



anthers not caudate at base. 



Style-branches elongated, filiform-subulate, hispidulous throughout; stig- 

 matic lines only near the base : leaves alternate. I. VERNONIACE^E. 



Style-branches elongated, more or less clavate-thickened upward and ob- 

 tuse, minutely papillose-puberulent, stigmatic only below the middle. 



II. ECPATORIACEJE. 



