94 SPRING FLORA 



COMPOSITE. Composite Family. 



Herbs or shrubs (or trees in some tropical genera). 

 Leaves exstipulate. Inflorescence a close, flower-like, 

 involucrate head, which is solitary or corymbed or 

 cymose. Flowers on a common receptacle, all alike or 

 of 2 kinds; those with strap-shaped corollas (e. g. ? the 

 yellow outside petal-like flowers of the Sunflower, or 

 all the flowers of the Dandelion) are called ray-flowers, 

 while those with tubular corollas (the brown flowers 

 forming the cushion-like part of the Sunflower) are 

 the disk-flowers. Calyx-limb, if present (called the 

 pappus, and modified usually for dispersion), crown- 

 ing the summit of the ovary in the form of awns, bris- 

 tles, scales or teeth, or cup-shaped. Corolla 5-lobed or 

 toothed. Stamens epipetalous ; 5 (or rarely 4); their 

 anthers united in a tube enclosing the 2-cleft style (or 

 nearly distinct in some of the tribe Heliantheae). 

 Ovary "inferior," ripening into an achene. 



For illustrations of the characters of anthers and 

 style-branches in the different tribes, see p. Ill of Miss 

 Eastwood's Key and Flora (published with the Bergen 

 series of botanies). 



Heads consisting of ray-flowers only; plants usually with 



milky juice. (Subfamily Ligulaeflorae). 

 Flowers pink or purple. 



Pappus-bristles plumose 1. Tragopogon 



Pappus-bristles not plumose . . 2. Lygodeamla 



Flowers yellow (sometimes purplish on outside). 



Pappus-bristles plumose 3. Microseris 



Pappus-bristles simple. 



Leaves all, or nearly all, basal; heads soli- 

 tary,, scapose. 



Achenes smooth throughout 4. Agoseri* 



Achenes rough -spinulose near the 



apex 5. Taraxacum 



Leafy-stemmed plants; heads corymbose.. 6. Crepis 

 Heads consisting- of both ray and disk-flowers or of disk- 

 flowers only. The disk-flowers are perfect; 

 ray-flowers pistillate or neutral; plants usually 

 without milky juice. (Subfamily Tubuliflorae.) 

 Anthers tailed at the base. 



Heads dioecious; involucral bracts not spiny- 

 tipped 7. Antennaria 



Heads perfect; involucral bracts spiny-tipped 8. Cirsium 

 Anthers not tailed at the base. 

 Ray-flowers wanting. 



Stamens nearly distinct 9. Iva 



Stamens syngenesious. 



Shrubs or woody herbs; pappus 



capillary 10. ChrysothaiimiiM 



