COMPOSITE. 79 



across, in the female plant twice as long as in the male, 3 to 7, col- 

 lected into a corymbose head, of which the short branches bear 

 only 1 or (more rarely) 2 anthodes. Plorets pink. Corolla of the 

 female flower with a very ol)lique limb. Achenes oblong-fusiform, 

 papillose. Pappus of the fertile florets of slender hairs; pappus 

 of the slender abortive ovaries of the male plant of very numerous 

 clavate compressed hairs with thick denticulatious. 



Mountain Ecevlasting. 



Frencb, Gnaphale Pied de Chat. German, Zweihihisiges Ruhrkraut. 



The flowers sold so much iu France under the name of Immortelles are a species 

 of this genus, and resemble our native ones, which form a substitute for the brighter 

 kinds. Wreaths, chaplets, and innumerable devices are formed out of these flowers, to 

 decorate the graves of departed friends, in France. In the neighbourhood of Pere la 

 Chaise, the great Parisian cemetery, numbers of families are constantly employed in 

 the manufacture of these memorials, and a large sale of them is constantly eSected. 

 Intperishable as the aflfection which dictates the adornment, these pretty flowers are 

 8ujii)osed to be. 



Tribe IV.— SENECIONE^. 



Leaves alternate. Anthodes generally heterogamous and ra- 

 diant. Florets of the disk tubular, perfect, those of the circum- 

 ference generally female and ligulate. Anthers without basal 

 appendages. branches of the style slender, terminated by a 

 pencil-like tuft. Achenes cylindrical, with longitudinal ridges. 

 Pappus consisting of hairs, very rarely absent. 



GENUS XVI— S E N E C I O. Lmn. 



Anthodes heterogamous and radiant, rarely homogamous and 

 discoid. Clinanth fiattish or convex, pitted but without paleae. 

 Pericline cylindrical or campanulate, of a single row of equal 

 herbaceous phyllarics, generally with a second irregular series of 

 much shorter ones at the base, all at length reflexed. Plorets 

 of the disk tubular and perfect, generally surrounded by a ray 

 of female ligulate florets. Branches of the style of the perfect 

 flowers truncate, penicillate at the apex. Achenes cylindrical, not 

 beaked, ribbed. Pappus of numerous rows of setaceous, nearly 

 simple, more or less caducous hairs. 



Annual or perennial herbs or undcr-shrubs, with alternate 

 leaves, and corymbose (more rarely paniculate or solitary) an- 

 thodes. Plorets generally yellow, more rarely orange or j)urple. 



The name of this genus of plants is given in allusion to the hoary appearance of 

 some of the species, and comes from senex, an old man. 



