PULICARIA. 



peaches. Stem 12 or 18 inches high, round, branched, leafy, cottony, 

 corymbose at the summit, with many bright yellow flower-heads, whose 

 disk is of rather a deeper hue than their numerous narrow spreading 

 rays. Leaves spreading, acute, veiny and wrinkled, slightly toothed or 

 serrated, 1 or 2 inches long, sessile, clasping the stem with their heart- 

 shaped, or arrow-shaped, base ; the under side cottony. Involucral- 

 scales numerous, very narrow and acute, woolly. Fruits bristly, obovate. 

 Pappus rough. Receptacle slightly cellular, unequally toothed, or scaly. 

 Linnasus states, on the authority of General Keith (Flora Suecica, 

 ed. ii. 294.), that this cured the Russian army of the dysentery. But 

 Haller speaks contemptuously of the medical virtues of the plant, 

 because, as he says, it abounds in earthy matter. Smith. 



BIDENS. 



Head many-flowered ; either homogamous and discoidal, or 

 more frequently both the one and the other in the same species. 

 Florets of the ray ligulate and neuter. Involucral scales in 2 rows, 

 which are alike or unlike. Receptacle flattish, paleaceous. 

 Branches of style terminated by a short cone. Achaenium more 

 or less obcompressed, aculeate, terminated by a beak scarcely 

 distinguishable from the achaenium, and ending in from 2 to 5 

 awns, which are rigid and rough backwards. 



921. B. tripartita Linn. sp. pi. 1165. Eng. Bot. t. 1113. 

 Smith Eng. Flora iii. 398. DC. prodr. v. 594. B. radiata 

 Thuill. fl. par. ecL 2. 4-22. Ditches and wet places throughout 

 Europe, the Caucasus, Dahuria and Siberia. (Bur Marigold.) 



Root tapering, with many fibres. Stem 2 or 3 feet high, erect, 

 angular, solid, smooth, leafy, with opposite axillary branches. Leaves 

 opposite, on winged footstalks, dark-green, smooth, strongly serrated, 

 acute, in 3 deep segments, sometimes 5 ; the uppermost or lowermost 

 generally undivided. Flower-heads terminal, solitary, of a brownish- 

 yellow, somewhat drooping, devoid of beauty and of fragrance, each 

 surrounded by about 8 spreading, lanceolate, serrated or entire bracteas, 

 unequal in size, but all extending much beyond the flower-head. 

 Achaenia with 2 or 3 prickly angles, and as many erect bristles, likewise 

 prickly with reflexed hooks, by which the achaenia stick like burs to 

 any rough surface, and are said sometimes to injure fish, by getting 

 into their gills. Smith. The whole plant is acrid and when chewed 

 excites salivation powerfully. 



922. B. chrysanthemoides Michx.fl. bor. amer. ii. 136. Hooker 

 fl. bor. am. i. 314. DC. prodr. v. 595 Coreopsis Bidens 



Walt.fi. car. 215. Rice grounds and swamps of Carolina. 



A smooth, erect annual. Leaves oblong, tapering to each end, 

 toothed, subserrate, connate at base. Head cernuous, radiant. Outer 

 involucral scales oblong, stiffly ciliated, spreading; inner oval, mem- 

 branous at the margin. Rays elliptical, twice as long as the involucre. 

 Achaenia scabrous backwards, 2-awned, DC. Has the same pro- 

 perties as the last. 



457 



