Wyethia, . COMPOSITiE. 349 



more truncate and produced (at the angles) into 1 to 4 chaffy rigid awns. — Peren- 

 nial herbs : with simple (rarely branching) stems from a stout root, rootstock, or 

 caudex, alternate mostly entire and ample leaves, and solitary or few and large or 

 middle-sized heads of yellow flowers. — Nutt. Jour. Acad. Philad. vii. 38, & Trans. 

 Am. Phd. Soc. 1. c. 351 ; Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. viii. 654. Alarconia, DC. Prodr. 



A genus of several species, all natives of the region between the Rocky Mountains and the 

 Paeitie : — dedicated by Xuttall to Captain Wyeth, with whom he afterwards crossed the continent, 

 and by De Candolle, two years later, to Hernando de Alarcon, a noble Spanish navigator who first 

 (in 1540) visited and surveyed the coast "of California. It is t. . )>.- regretted that the genus cannot 

 commemorate one of the earliest explorers of the country : but the name may designate a section. 



§ 1. Atenes thick, obtusely quadrangular, crowned with a conspicuous calyx-like pap- 

 pus of orat. or lanceolate coriaceous teeth more or /ess united at base into a 

 cup : heads eery large and broad {the disk 1Uo2 inches in diameter); , 

 lucre open and leafy. — Alabcoxia, Gray. 



1. W. helenioides, Nutt. Soft-tomentose, or with age becoming almost gla- 

 brous, a foot or two high : leaves oblong or oval; radical ones a foot or more long, 

 4 to 6 inches wide : cauline about half the size, all contracted at base into a short 

 petiole : heads mostly leafy at base : outer scales of the involucre ovate-lanceolate or 

 ovate, sometimes toothed : akenes more or less pubescent at top when young. — 

 Gray, PL Fendl. 82. Alarconia helenioides, L>C. Melarhiza inuloides, Kellogg. 



Hillsides ; common near San Francisco and through the valley of the Sacramento. Akenes 

 half an inch and the pappus 2 or 3 lines long. Teeth of the corolla ovate-lanceolate, somewhat 

 hairy outside. 



2. W. glabra, Gray. Green and glabrous throughout, minutely resinous-glan- 

 dular or viscid: leaves otherwise as in the preceding, or more commonly toothed, 

 and the upper perhaps narrower : akenes and pappus glabrous, the lobes of the lat 

 ter minutely ciliate. — Proc. Am. Acad. vi. 543. 



Hill-ides, San Luis Obispo t.. Marin Co. (A specimen from Bolander's collection is said to 

 come fiom Mount Dana, at 12,000 feet; hut some error is to be suspected.) Ilea. Is nearly as 

 large and leafy as in W. helenioides, the bracts or leafy involncral scales often surpassing the 

 rays. Disk-corolla with ovate wholly glabrous teeth. Foliage said to have a viscid exudation 

 of agreeable odor. 



§ 2. Akenes less thick, and with acute angles, at least those of the disk laterally com- 

 pressed : /leads less large. — True Wyethia. 



* Involucre hemispherical or broader : jxippus short and aimless. 



3. W. ovata, i 'lay. Tomentose with soft pubescence: stem 2 feet or more 

 high (apparently from running rootstocks), leafy, occasionally branching: leaves 



dly ovate or the larger somewhat cordate, acute oi acuminate. 3 t.. 6 inches 

 long, all petioled : involucre an incB in diameter; its scales broadly lance.. late. 

 seldom equalling the disk-flowers, mostly with a coriaceous erect base and 

 or less spreading acuminate herbaceous summit : akenes linear-oblong (about l lines 

 long), minut.lv pubescent, crowned with a pappus of 6 or 8 short and broad 

 unequal chaffy teeth, all of them somewhat united at the base. — Proc. Am. Acad, 

 vii. 357. 



Dry hillsides, Mariposa Co., from the foot-hills to above the Yosemite, Bridges, 1: 

 Rays In !•. 24, about an inch long. 



* * Involucrt narrow, of rather few erect scales: pap pus l — i-awned. 



1. W. mollis, <! ray. Tomentose with very soft white wool, which is partly 

 deciduous with age : stems •_' or 3 feet high, often branching above and beariri - 

 I racemose naked heads, rather leafy : leaves oblong or sometimes ovate, 3 I i 9 

 inches long, becoming rigid and prominently reticulated, contracted at base into the 



