Troximon. . COMPOSIT.1^]. ^^^ 



118. TROXIMON, Xutt. 

 Head many-flowereLl. Involucre cuinpanulale or cylindraceous ; the scales mostly 

 lanceolate, imbricated in few series, the outer often loose and somewhat foliaceous 

 or bract-like. Receptacle flat, naked, sometimes foveolate, in one species occasion- 

 ally (and abnormally) with a few chaffy scales among the flowers. Akenes oblon" 

 or linear, terete, 1 0-ribbed ; the apex contracted into somewhat of a neck, or pro- 

 longed into a beak ; the broad base or a basilar callus to a narrower base more or 

 less hollowed at the insertion. Pappus of copious bright white or whitish capillary 

 merely scabrous bristles, which are either persistent or separately deciduous from 

 the dilated terminal areola. — Acaulescent perennials or annuals ; with clustered 

 radical leaves, and simple scapes, bearing solitary large or middle-sized heads of 

 yellow or rarely orange or purplish flowers. — Benth. k Hook. Gen. PI. ii. 522. 

 Macrorhynchus, Less., DC, &c. Stylojmjypus, Kymapkura, & Cryptopleura, Xutt. 

 in Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. n. ser. vii. 430 - 433. 



A genus of several species, natives of North America west of the Mississippi and two or three 

 in Soutli America, being now extended, by Mr. Bentham, to embrace Macrorhynclms. The 

 latter, with filiform beak to the akene, seems abundantly distinct from the eastern beakless 

 T. cuspidatum, which ought to be regarded as the type of the genus. But T. glaucum and T. 

 aitrantiacum connect them. See Proc. Am. Acad. ix. 215. 



§ 1. Alrnes fusiform, glabrous, tapering gradually into a short or rather stout nerved 

 beak: pa2ypus jJersistent and rather rigid: root perennial. — Notuotroximox. 



1. T. glaucum, Xutt. "When young hir.sute-pubescent, or nearly glabrous : 

 leaves varying from linear to lanceolate or oblanceolate and with entire or undulate 

 margins, rarely laciniate-pinnatifid : scapes a span to a foot high : scales of the invo- 

 lucre all or all but the outermost and shorter ones acuminate : mature akene taper- 

 ing into a stout beak of not more than half the length of its body. — Bot. Mag. 

 t. 3462. Macrorhynchus glaucus, Eaton in Bot. King Exp. 204. 



Var. taraxacifolium, Gray. Large : leaves 7 to 10 inches long and some- 

 times an inch and a half wide, from lanceolate to obovate-oblong, entire, toothed, or 

 sometimes pinnatifid : scape a foot or two high : involucre an inch high ; its scales 

 all acute or acuminate. — T. taraxacifolium, Xutt. in Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. 1. c. 



Var. laciniatum, Gray. A dwarf or small form, with scapes 2 to G inches 

 high : leaves laciniately and runcinately pinnatifid, or occasionally entire and linear. 

 — Macrorhynchus glaucus, var. laciniatus, Eaton, 1. c. Troximon j^dt'vijlorum, 

 Xutt. 1. c, is an entire-leaved form. 



Eastern borders of the Sierra Nevada, from Carson City to Sierra Valley, in tlie above two vari- 

 eties (the var. laciniatum on Movmt Dana and Carson Pass, at 8,000 to 11,000 feet, Brciccr, and 

 Summit, Bolandcr) ; north to Oregon, and east to beyond the Rocky Mountains, mostly in low 

 grounds. Corollas yellow, sometimes turning purple in age. The var. dasi/irjifia/mn, witli liairy 

 and larger somewhat foliaceous outer scales to the involucre, occasionally has clialfy scales on the 

 receptacle. 



2. T. aurantiacum, Hook. More slender, a span to a foot or more high, more 

 glabrous : leaves thinner, inclined to oblanceolate or spatulate, often denticulate, 

 sometimes laciniate-pinnatifid : involucre (6 to 9 lines high) mostly of two series of 

 less acute scales, the outer about as long as the inner and broader : mature akenes 

 tapering into a slender beak of nearly or fully the length of the body. — Hook.^ Fl. 

 i. 300, t. 104. T. jmmilrim, Xutt. 1. c, a small form. Macrorhynchus troximoides, 

 Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 491. 



Meadows or low grounds : same range as tlio last, and forms of the two often confounded. Tlie 

 only Californian specimens seen are from " Hear Valley Meadows, at 4,000 feet " (liolauihr and 

 Keilofjq), and with pinnatifid leaves, but no fruit. Kipe akenes distinguish tlie species from the 

 preceding: the pappus also is less persistent. The corollas are orange, often turning to purple. 



