COMPOSITE. (COMPOSITE FAMILY.) 215 



ORDER 52. DIPSACE^E. (TEASEL FAMILY.) 



Herbs, with opposite or whorled leaves, no stipules, and the Jlowers in dense 

 heads, surrounded by an involucre, as in the Composite Family ; but the sta- 

 mens are distinct, and the suspended seed has albumen. Represented by 

 the Scabious (cultivated) and the genus 



1. DIPSACUS, Tourn. TEASEL. 



Involucre many-leaved, longer than the chaffy leafy-tipped and pointed bracts 

 among the densely capitate flowers : each flower with a 4-leaved calyx-like in- 

 volucel investing the ovary and fruit (achenium). Calyx-tube coherent with 

 the ovary, the limb cup-shaped, without a pappus. Corolla nearly regular, 

 4-cleft. Stamens 4, inserted on the corolla. Style slender. Stout and coarse 

 biennials, hairy or prickly, with large oblong heads. (Name from di^aa, 

 to thirst, probably because the united cup-shaped bases of the leaves in some 

 species hold water.) 



1. D. SYLVESTRIS, Mill. (WILD TEASEL.) Prickly ; leaves lance-oblong ; 

 leaves of the involucre slender, longer than the head ; bracts (chaff) tapering 

 into a long flexible awn with a straight point. Roadsides : rather rare. (Nat. 

 from Eu.) Suspected to be the original of 



2. D. FuLL6xuM, L., the cultivated FULLER'S TEASEL, which has a shorter 

 involucre, and stiff chaff to the heads, with hooked points, used for raising a 

 nap upon woollen cloth : it has escaped from cultivation in some places. (Adv. 

 from Eu.) 



ORDER 53. COMPOSITE. (COMPOSITE FAMILY.) 



Flowers in a close head (the compound flower of the older botanists), 

 on a common receptacle, surrounded by an involucre, with 5 (rarely 4) 

 stamens inserted on the corolla, their anthers united in a tube (syngenesious). 

 Calyx-tube united with the 1 -celled ovary, the limb (called a pappus) 

 crowning its summit in the form of bristles, awns, scales, teeth, &c., or 

 cup-shaped, or else entirely absent. Corolla either strap-shaped or tubu- 

 lar ; in the latter chiefly 5-lobed, valvate in the bud, the veins bordering 

 the margins of the lobes. Style 2-cleft at the apex. Fruit seed-like 

 (achenium), dry, containing a single erect auatropous seed, with no albu- 

 men. An immense family, in temperate regions chiefly herbs, without 

 stipules, with perfect, polygamous, monoecious, or dioecious flowers. The 

 flowers with a strap-shaped (ligulate) corolla are called rays or ray-flow- 

 ers : the head which presents such flowers, either throughout or at the 

 margin, is radiate. The tubular flowers compose the disk ; and a head 

 which has no ray-flowers is said to be discoid. When the head contains 

 two sorts of flowers it is said to be heterogamous ; when only one sort, 

 homoyamous. The leaves of the involucre, of whatever form or texture, 

 are termed scales. The bracts or scales, which often grow on the recep- 



