COMPOSITE. (COMPOSITE FAMILY.) 215 



12. C. Virginianus, Pursh. Stem slender, 2 or 3 feet high, simple or 

 branching : leaves narrow, varying as in the last : heads more naked -peduncu- 

 late, only an inch long: involucral bracts small and narrow, thinner, tapering 

 into a very weak short spreading bristle-like prickle, sometimes hardly any : flowers 

 rose-purple. From Colorado to Texas and Virginia. 



72. KBIGIA, Schreb. 



Low herbs ; with rather large heads of yellow flowers terminating slender 

 naked peduncles or scapes. Ours belongs to the Cynthia, in which the 

 involucral bracts are 9 to 18 and thin, and pappus of 10 to 15 oblong scales 

 and 15 or 20 slender capillary bristles. 



1. K. amplexicaulis, Nutt. Caulescent, not tuberiferous, glaucous: 

 stem a foot or two high, 1 to 3-leaved, bearing one or two or few somewhat 

 umbellate heads on moderately long peduncles : leaves oblong or oval, obtuse, 

 entire, repand and denticulate, or radical somewhat lyrately lobed; these 

 contracted into winged petioles; cauliuc partly clasping by a broad base. 

 Cynthia Virginica, Don. From Colorado to New York and Georgia. 



73. STEPHANOMERIA, Nutt. 



Mostly smooth and glabrous ; with branching or rarely virgate and often 

 rigid or rush-like stems, small or merely scale-like leaves on the flowering 

 branches, and usually paniculate heads of rose-colored or flesh-colored flowers. 

 In ours the heads are ^ to ^ inch high, mostly 5-flowered and with about the 

 same number of involucral bracts. 



* Perennials, paniculately branched from thick and tortuous roots, with striate and 



rush-like branches, small-leaved or nearly leafless above : pappus bristles not at 

 all dilated at base, but plumose below the middle. 



1. S. runcinata, Nutt. Comparatively stout and rigid, a foot or two high, 

 with spreading branches: heads mostly 4 or 5 lines high and scattered along 

 the branches : lower leaves runcinate-pinnatijid, commonly lanceolate ; upper 

 linear or reduced to scales : pappus dull white, plumose only to near the base. 

 Plains, from Nebraska and Wyoming to Texas, Arizona, and California. 



2. S. minor, Nutt. More slender and with ascending branches bearing usu- 

 al/ >/ terminal and smaller heads: cauline leaves all slender, often filiform : pappus 

 white, very plumose down to base. Plains and mountains, from the borders 

 of British America to those of Mexico. 



* * Annuals or biennials : bristles of the white or whitish pappus plumose above 



but naked below the middle, at base more or less dilated. 



3. S. exigua, Nutt. A foot or two high, with slender branches and 

 branchlets : radical and lower cauline leaves pinnatifid or bipinnatifid, those 

 of the branches mainly reduced to short scales : bristles of the pappus 9 to 

 18, their more or less dilated or chaffy bases commonly a little connate. 

 From Wyoming to Texas and westward to Nevada and E. California. 



