336 COMPOSURE. Psilocarphus. 



30. PSILOCARPHUS, Nutt. 



Head discoid, many flowered ; the pistillate flowers with filiform corolla, numer- 

 ous (20 to 40, rarely 10 to 12), in several series on the depressed-globular receptacle, 

 each loosely enclosed in an obovate or semi-obcordate hooded-saccate vesicular or 

 inflated chaff or scale, clothed with soft wool, of membranaceous texture, its apex 

 introrse and more or less beaked with a hyaline scale ; the hermaphrodite but sterile 

 flowers few and naked in the centre, with tubular 4 - 5-toothed corolla. Scales of 

 the involucre few and small, scarious. Akene oblong or cylindraceous and moder- 

 ately compressed, straight (its small areola terminal), small and loose in the sac of 

 the scale, which is more or less open down the inner fixce. Pappus none. — Low 

 and mostly depressed floccose-woolly annuals, with entire leaves, which are mainly 

 ojiposite ! Heads small, in terminal capitate clusters and in the forks of the branch- 

 ing stems, involucrate by the upper leaves. — Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. viii. 652. 



Peculiar to Oregon and CaUfornia, and one or two species in Chili. Ours appear to be redu- 

 cible to two, from the first of which the Chilian P. fjlobiferus differs, perhaps too slightly, in its 

 broader leaves and proportionally wider as well as smaller akenes. 



1. P. Oreganus, Nutt. Beset with loose white wool, especially the heads, 

 becoming dittusely branched, mostly forming spreading tufts : leaves linear or the 

 uppermost narrowly oblong : akenes cylindraceous and slightly compressed, about 

 three fourths of a line long. — P. glohiferus, Nutt. excl. syn. ; a loose woolly form. 

 P. h-evissimtis, Nutt. ; dwarf-depauperate state of the same. P. Oreganus, Nutt. ; a 

 state with the white woolliness somewhat appressed. 



Var. elatior, Gray, 1. c. : the most remarkable form, prolxxbly an unusually 

 luxuriant condition, a span high, almost erect, with leaves nearly an inch long, and 

 the cluster of heads large in proportion ; as yet found only at Portland, Oregon. 



Santa Barbara to Oregon near the coast, in low grounds along streams. 



2. P. tenellus, Nutt. Canescently tomentose with finer and more appressed 

 wool, which soon detaches from the slender or filiform diffusely very much branched 

 stems, forming prostrate tufts a span or two in diameter : lower leaves spatulate- 

 linear and the upper spatulate : heads smaller, in fruit 2 or 3 lines in diameter, but 

 the fertile flowers quite as numerous : akenes fusiform-oblong, half a line long. 



Low grounds, common from San Francisco, &c., southward. 



31. STYLOCLINE, Xutt, char, extended. 

 Head discoid, many-flowered ; the pistillate flowers with filiform corolla, several 

 or many in 2 or many series on the columnar receptacle, each with the ovary and 

 akene loosely enclosed in the base or body of an ovate broadly boat-shaped chaff or 

 scale of the receptacle, of scarious or firmer membranaceous texture ; the hermaphro- 

 dite but sterile flowers few in the centre, on the narrow summit of the receptacle, 

 inv(5lucrate but not enclosed by 4 or 5 merely concave scales of the receptacle ; 

 their tubular corollas 4 - ,5-toothed. Scales of the involucre hyaline and incon- 

 spicuous, or hardly any. Akenes' obovate or oblong with a narrow base, slightly 

 oblique or straight ; the areola terminal. Pappus none to the akenes, commonly 

 a few caducous scabrous bristles around the sterile flowers. — Loav floccose-woolly 

 annuals, with entire and alternate leaves (in the manner of the tribe), and small 

 heads in glomerate clusters. In affinity intermediate between the preceding genera 

 and the next : Western North American, with one species in Affghanistan. — 

 Gray, 1. c. Micropns § .3 & § 4, Benth. & Hook. 1. c. 



