COMPOSITE. 327 



of Mulgp.dium, will scarcely hold good in some other exotic species of blue 

 Sowthistles. 



XXXV. DANDELION. TARAXACUM. 



Herbs, with a perennial rootstock, radical leaves, and radical peduncles, 

 with single heads of yellow flowers. Involucres of several nearly equal, erect 

 inner bracts, and several imbricated outer ones. Receptacle without scales. 

 Achenes tapering into a long slender beak, with a pappus of numerous 

 simple hairs. 



A widely diffused genus, of which all the described species may perhaps 

 be considered as varieties of a single one, differing from Hawkbit in the 

 simple hairs of the pappus, from Crepis chiefly in the leafless simple pedun- 

 cles. 



1. Common Dandelion. Taraxacum Dens-leonis, Desf, 

 {Leontodon Taraxacum^ Eng. Bot. t. 510.) 



The rootstock descends into a thick tap-root, black on the outside, and 

 very bitter. Leaves varying from linear-lanceolate and almost entire to 

 deeply pinnatifid, with broad triangular lobes usually pointing downwards, 

 tlie terminal one larger, obovate or acute. Pedimcles 2 to 6 or 8 inches 

 high. luvolucral bracts linear, often thickened towards the top, or with a 

 tooth on the back below the point. Achenes not compressed, striated, 

 mai-ked upwards with short pointed asperities, the beak two or three times 

 as long as the achene itself. 



In meadows and pastures, cultivated and waste places, throughout Europe, 

 Russian and central Asia, and northern America to the Arctic regions, and 

 now a troublesome weed in almost all cultivated parts of the world. Among 

 the numerous forms which have given rise to the distinction of a considerable 

 number of supposed species, the most remarkable British ones are the com- 

 mon D., with pinnatifid leaves and the outer involucral bracts much re- 

 curved, and the marsh D. {T. palustre, Eng. Bot. t. 553), with narrow 

 leaves nearly entire or sinuate, and the outer involucral bracts scarcely 

 spreading at the tips. 



XXXVI. CREPIS. CREPIS. 



Annuals or biennials, rarely forming a stock of longer duration, usually 

 glabrous or slightly hairy, with branched, more or less leafy stems, and rather 

 small heads of flowers in loose panicles, yellow in the British species. In- 

 volucre of several nearly equal, linear inner bracts, with smaller outer ones. 

 Receptacle without scales. Achenes not compressed, angular or striated, 

 more or less narrowed at the top or beaked, with a pappus of copious simple 

 hairs, usually very white. 



One of the largest genera of Ligulates in Europe and Asia, with a very 

 few American species, all nearly allied to Hawhweed, but mostly distin- 

 guished by habit as well as by the achenes contracted at the top and tlie 

 white pappus. There are some species, however, so nearly intermediate 

 between tlie two genera that they are referred to the one or to the other 

 according to the peculiar views of individual botanists. 



