144 COMPOSITE. (COMPOSITE FAMILY.) 



5. LI A THIS, Schreb, BLAZING STAR. 



Herbs, with simple virgate very leafy stems from a tuberous or mostly glo- 

 bose and corm-like stock, bearing spicate heads of rose-purple flowers ; the 

 leaves all alternate, narrow, entire, rigid, mostly glabrous. 



* Pappus very plumose: heads 16 to 60-jlowered. 



1. Ii. squarrosa, Willd. Pubescent or partly glabrous : stem stout, 6 to 

 20 inches high : leaves all linear and rigid ; the lower grass-like : heads few, 

 or sometimes numerous in a leafy spike or raceme, the larger an inch or more 

 long : bracts of the involucre much imbricated, all herbaceous and acuminate, 

 or with foliaceous or herbaceous lanceolate rigid and somewhat pungent tips ; 

 these usually squarrose-spreadiug and prolonged. Within the eastern limit 

 of our range and extending eastward across the continent. 



Var. intermedia, DC. Heads narrow : bracts of the involucre erect or 

 little spreading, less prolonged. Same range as the type, perhaps extending 

 a little farther west. 



* * Pappus plainly plumose to the naked eye: heads 4 to G-flowered. 



2. L. punctata, Hook. Stems a span to 30 inches high from a thick 

 and branching or sometimes globular stock, stout : leaves all narrowly linear, 

 as well as bracts commonly punctate, rigid : head oblong or cyliudraceous, 

 thickish, from \ to f inch long, mostly numerous and crowded in a dense 

 spike : bracts of the involucre oblong, abruptly or sometimes more gradually 

 cuspidate-acuminate, often lanuginous-ciliate. On the plains from the Sas- 

 katchewan to Montana and southward to Texas and New Mexico. 



# * * Pappus minutely barbellate, not plumose : heads 25 to 4Q-Jloivered. 



3. L. scariosa, Willd. Pubescent or glabrate : stem stout, 1 to 5 feet 

 high : leaves spatulate- or oblong-lanceolate and tapering into a petiole, 4 to 6 

 inches long; upper narrowly lanceolate; uppermost small, linear, sessile: 

 heads racemose or spicate, few or numerous (3 to 50), about an inch high 

 and wide or much smaller : iuvolucral bracts broadest and rounded at sum- 

 mit, there either herbaceous or scarious edged and tinged with purple (rarely 

 white-scarious). From the Rocky Mountains eastward across the continent. 

 Extremely variable. 



6. GUTIERREZIA, Lag. 



Ours is a suffruticose plant, with narrow entire and alternate leaves, small 

 heads of yellow flowers, and pappus of ray and disk similar, consisting of 

 chaffy scales which vary from narrowly oblong to linear-subulate. 



1. G. EuthamiaB, Torr. & Gray. Bushy, from glabrous to puberulent, 

 6 to 18 inches high, with mostly strict and fastigiately polycephalous branches : 

 leaves narrowly linear, verging to filiform : heads mostly clavate-oblong, few 

 to several-flowered, not over 2 lines long, some short-pedunculate, others 3 to 5 

 in a glomerule : flowers of disk and ray not numerous : akenes sericeous- 

 pubescent. From the Saskatchewan and Montana to New Mexico and 

 California. 



