394 COMPOSITE. .Actinella. 



ceous, with. 5 erect short (often glandular-hearded) teeth. Style-branches of the 



perfect flowers with dilated-truncate minutely penicillate tip. Akenes short, turbinate, 



silky-hirsute. Pappus of 5 to 12 hyaline 1-nerved or nerveless chaffy scales ; the 



nerve when conspicuous sometimes projecting into an awn. — Chiefly perennials 



(of W. North America), low or acaulescent, disposed to be woolly at base of the 



stem ; the leaves alternate, pinnately parted or entire, usually resinous-impressed- 



punctate : heads peduncled, terminating the stem, scape, or branches, sometimes 



loosely corymbose : flowers yellow. 



• The acaulescent species inhabit the Eocky Mountains and the plains eastward. Those in and 

 near California have leafy and branching rigid stems, in tufts from persistent somewhat woody 

 rootstocks. 



1. A. Richardsonii, Nutt. A span to a foot and a half high, varying from 

 hoary with short woolliness to nearly glabrous, leafy to the top : leaves rigid, peti- 

 oled, 3 - 7-parted into linear or almost filiform divisions, or some of them entire : 

 heads mostly numerous and corymbose : scales of the involucre oblong-ovate, the 

 outer series united at base : receptacle conical, glabrous or minutely pubescent when 

 young : scales of the pappus 5 to 7, ovate-lanceolate, subulate-acuminate, either 

 slightly or considerably shorter than the disk-corollas, mid-nerve hardly any. — 

 Picradenia Richardsonii, Hook. Fl. i. 317, t. 108. 



Var. canescens, D. C. Eaton. A hoary form, barely a span high, with fewer 

 and larger heads, and shorter ovate and merely acute scales of the pappus. — Bot. 

 King Exp. 175. 



Collected on the northern borders of the State in the Wilkes Expedition : common in the 

 interior of Oregon and in Kevada, extending to and beyond the Eocky Mountains. Sierra Valley, 

 Leminon. The latter a form with large heads (about 5 lines high), in this respect, and somewhat 

 in the pappus, approaching the remarkable var. canescens, which was found only on one of the 

 Eastern Humboldt Mountains. 



2. A. Cooperi, Gray. Two feet high, with loose and more simple virgate 

 branches terminated by single heads, minutely puberulent : lower leaves unknown ; 

 upper ones 3-parted into narrow linear divisions : receptacle convex, densely villous : 

 rays elongated, acutely 3-cleft at the summit : scales of the pappus 5, broadly ovate 

 and obtuse or slightly pointed, traversed by an obscure midnerve, not half the 

 length of the disk-corollas. — Proc. Am. Acad. vii. 359. 



Southeastern border of the State, on Providence Mountains, at the altitude of 5,000 feet, Dr. 

 Cooper. Head as large as in the variety of the preceding ; the rays longer. 



81. SYNTKICHOPAPPTTS, Gray. 



Head many-flowered, with 5 pistillate rays ; all the flowers fertile. Involucre 

 cylindraceous, of 5 equal and oblong carinate-concave scales, which partly enclose the 

 ray-akenes. Eeceptacle flat, naked. Eays oval, obtusely 2 - 3-toothed at the apex : 

 disk-corollas nearly funnelform, glabrous and naked, 5-lobed; the lobes ovate- 

 oblong. Anthers tipped with a long lanceolate appendage. Style-branches linear, 

 surmounted by an ovate-lanceolate flat appendage. Akenes linear-turbinate, with 

 5 strong and obtuse hirsute-villous ribs, truncate at summit, the terminal areola 

 large. Pappus of numerous barbellate white bristles in a single series, shorter than 

 the disk-corolla, united at base in a ring (and some of them higher up), and decidu- 

 ous together. — A low diffuse white-woolly annual, with alternate 3-lobed leaves, 

 and wholly the aspect of Actinolqns, to which it is clearly related. — Gray in Pacif. 

 E. Eep. iv. 106, t. 15. 



