SUNFLOWER FAMILY. Composltae. 



SUNFLOWER FAMILY. Compositae. 



The youngest and largest plant family, comprising about 

 seven hundred and fifty genera and ten thousand species, 

 highly specialized for insect pollination, easily recognized 

 as a whole, but many of its members difficult to distinguish. 

 Some tropical kinds are trees; ours are usually herbs, 

 sometimes shrubs, without stipules; the leaves opposite, 

 alternate or from the root; the flowers all small and 

 crowded in heads, on the enlarged top of the flower-stalk, 

 which is called the "receptacle," and surrounded by a 

 common involucre of separate bracts, few or many, ar- 

 ranged in one or more rows; the receptacle also sometimes 

 having scale-like or bristle-like bracts among the flowers, its 

 surface smooth, or variously pitted and honey-combed. The** 

 flowers are sometimes perfect, or with only pistils, or only 

 stamens, or with stamens and pistils on different plants, or 

 all kinds mixed. The calyx-tube is sometimes a mere ring, 

 or its margin consists of hairs, bristles or scales, called the 

 "pappus." The corollas are chiefly of two sorts; they are 

 tubular and usually have five lobes or teeth, but often the 

 flowers around the margin of the head are strap-shaped, that 

 is, the border of the corolla is expanded into what is called 

 a " ray." For instance, the yellow center, or "disk, " of a 

 Daisy is composed of a crowded mass of tiny tube-shaped 

 flowers, which is surrounded by a circle of white, strap- 

 shaped flowers, or rays, which look like petals. A Thistle, 

 on the other hand, has no rays and the head is made up of 

 tube-shaped flowers only. Stamens usually five, on the 

 corolla-tube, alternate with its lobes, anthers usually united 

 into a tube surrounding the style, which has two branches 

 in fertile flowers, but usually undivided in sterile flowers; 

 ovary inferior, one-celled, maturing into an akene, often 

 tipped with hairs from the pappus to waft it about, or with 

 hooks or barbs to catch in fur of animals. (Descriptions 

 of genera have been omitted as too technical.) 



There are many kinds of Carduus (Cnicus) (Cirsium), 

 widely distributed ; with tubular flowers only. 

 Th . A strikingly handsome, branching plant, 



C&rduus Cbulteri ^ rom three to seven feet high, with light 

 Pink, crimson green leaves, very decorative in form, more 

 Spring, summer O r less downy on the upper side and pale 

 California with down Qn the unden The fl ower . 



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