162 COMPOSITE. (COMPOSITE FAMILY.) 



nearly so, 3 to 5 inches long, 2 to 4 lines wide, entire, or lower with rare den- 

 ticulations : involucre 3 lines high ; its bracts all small, narrowly linear and 

 erect, thiunish, manifestly imbricated in 2 or 3 series, and the outer more or less 

 shorter (thus connecting with A. paniculatus of the preceding subdivision) : 

 rays light violet-purple, 4 or 5 lines long. A. cestlvus, Gray, Man. mainly. 

 Wet meadows in the mountains north to the British possessions, and thence 

 eastward. 



17. A. longifolius, Lam. A foot to a yard high, glabrous or pubescent, 

 leafy : leaves elongated-lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, entire or sparingly serru- 

 late, 3 to 7 inches long, tapering to both ends : involucre 4 or 5 lines high, little 

 or not at all imbricated; its bracts all of nearly equal length: ravs 3 or 4 lines 

 long, violet or purplish, rarely almost white. Low moist grounds, Montana 

 to Labrador, and south to New England. 



= = Inclined to be pubescent or scabrous, at least in the upper parts of the stem, 

 which is often monocephalous : leaves entire or nearly so : frequently alpine or 

 subalpine : Western forms. 



a. Involucre conspicuously and regularly imbricated, of oblong-linear or spatu- 

 Late bracts; outer bracts successively shorter ; all loosely erect or little spread- 

 ing, with mostly obtuse and broadish tips. 



18. A. adscendens, Lind). A span to two feet high, rather rigid, from 

 nearly glabrous to strigulose : stems commonly branching, bearing few or 

 rather numerous loosely paniculate or subcorymbose heads (4 or 5 lines high) : 

 leaves of firm and thickish texture, linear to spatulate-lauceolate, with mar- 

 gins commonly ciliate or scabrous : bracts of the hemispherical involucre 

 moderately unequal and in comparatively few ranks : rays 3 or 4 lines long, 

 violet or purple. From New Mexico and Arizona to Nevada, Montana, and 

 the Saskatchewan. 



b. Involucre more or less imbricated but looser ; the bracts all narrow (linear or 

 subulate), thtnnish, from moderately to hardly unequal, loosely erect, mostly 

 acute, with not at all broadened tips, nor with the outermost foliaceous. 



1. Low, 1 to 2 feet high or less, with solitary or few heads: chiejly in the moun- 

 tains and northward. 



19. A. AndinilS, Nutt. Dwarf, with decumbent stems 2 or 3 inches long 

 from filiform creeping rootstocks ; bearing a solitary comparatively large head : 

 leaves % inch long; radical and lower cauline spatulate; cauline (2 or 3) linear- 

 lanceolate : heads 4 lines high : rays (35 to 40) violet. In the mountains of 

 Wyoming, near perpetual snow, Nuttall. Not since found ; thought possibly 

 to be an alpine state of the following. 



20. A. Fremonti, Gray. A span to afoot or more high, glabrous or nearly 

 so : stem slender, erect: leaves with margins either quite naked and smooth or 

 obscurely scabrous; radical and lowest cauline oblong or oblanceolate, or 

 somewhat obovate, inch or two long, and tapering into a slender margined 

 petiole ; cauline from oblong-lanceolate to linear, commonly half-clasping at 

 base : heads solitary in the smaller specimens, several in the larger, one third 

 to half an inch high, somewhat naked-peduncled : bracts of the involucre nar- 

 rowly linear, some of the outer shorter. Synopt. Fl. i. 191. A. adscendens, 

 var. Fremonti, Torr. & Gray. In the mountains below the alpine region from 

 Colorado to Montana and westward to the Sierra Nevada and Cascades. 



