Microseris. COMPOSITJE. 423 



108. PHALACROSERIS, Gray. 



Head rather many-flowered. Involucre campanulate, of 12 to 16 equal lanceolate 

 and somewhat herbaceous scales, in one or two series, their barely united bases 

 becoming somewhat dilated and concave in fruit, occasionally a loose and linear 

 subtending bractlet. Eeceptacle convex, naked. Ligules linear, rather short. 

 Akenes short-oblong, becoming slightly incurved, obscurely 4 - 5-angled or nerved, 

 truncate at both ends, smooth and even, destitute of pappus. — A single species. 



1. P. Bolanderi, Gray. Perennial, glabrous : leaves linear-lanceolate or oblan- 

 ceolate, entire, in a tuft from the short and thickish dark-colored rootstock : scapes 

 perfectly simple and naked, a span to a foot high : flowers orange-yellow. — Proc. 

 Am. Acad. vii. 364 ; Lenth. & Hook. Gen. PI. ii. 507. 



Wet meadows (Westfall's, &c.) of the Sierra Nevada, alt. 7,000 to 8,000 feet, south of the 

 Yosemite Valley, Bolandcr, Torrcy, A. Gray. Head not nodding before expansion ; involucre 

 barely half an inch high. Flowers open in sunshine. 



109. MICROSERIS, Don. 



Head several - many-flowered. Involucre cylindraceous or campanulate ; the 

 thin-herbaceous or membranaceous scales from linear-lanceolate to ovate, either regu- 

 larly imbricated or mainly in a double series, the outer short and calyculate. Recep- 

 tacle fiat, naked. Corollas mostly with a hairy tube. Akenes terete or raivly 

 somewhat angled, 8-10- (sometimes 12—14-) ribbed, truncate at the apex, occa- 

 sionally narrowed above into a sort of neck or beak, furnished with a basal callosity 

 which is more or less hollowed at the insertion ; the outermost frequently pubes- 

 cent. Pappus of few or several (mostly 5'to 10, sometimes 12 to 24) awn-bearing, 

 chaffy scales, or slender awns or bristles with more or less paleaceous dilated base, 

 either naked or sometimes plumose, rarely by abortion wanting. — Annuals, bien- 

 nials, or some perhaps perennials, glabrous or slightly furfuraceous-puberulent, with 

 chiefly radical ami often pinnatifid leaves, and lien, Is of yellow flowers terminating 

 scapes or long peduncles, commonly nodding before expansion. — Don in Phil. Mag. 

 xi. 388 (1832); Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. ix. 207. BeUardia, Colla (is:;.-)). Lepi- 

 donema, Fischer A .Meyer ( 1 s.'i.V). Fir/iir.i. Schultz in Linuffia (1835). Galois, DC. 

 (1838); Gray in Pacif. R Rep. iv. 121. Phyllopappus, Walp. in Linnsea (1840). 

 Uropappus & Scorzonella, Nutt. (1840). Microseris A Scorzonel/n, Benth. & Hook'. 

 Gen. PL ii. 506, 533. 



A genua of sixteen Bpecies, all Western North American, excepting two in the southern hemi- 

 sphere (one in Chili and one in New Zealand and Australia). De i landoue's nami . under 

 which our species have become familiar, has to give way to the much older and less happily 

 chosen one oi K £»,to include also S ■■'■'■ contrary to Mr. Bentham's opinion. The 



hollowed callus at the inserti C the akene is about the same in all, and the imbrication of the 



involm : '■■. degrees into tit.- simpler calyculate mode. The fusiform roots of the so 



perennial spi ies seem to be only biennial. 



§ 1. Pappus plumose and white: akenes slender, terete, not attenuate either towards 

 ,i/„.r or bast : stems more or less branching, from a fusiform (probably bien- 

 nial) simpli or fascicled root. — Ptilojphora, Gray. 



1. M. nutans, (l ray. Slender, a fool or so high, mostly at length loo 



branched: Leaves entir : laciniate-pinnatifid into linear lobes, varying from lili- 



; rm-lin to patulate, or the radical even oval: heads "8 -20-flowered, on slender 

 peduncles: involucre cylindraceous, of 8 to In linear-lano radually action 



nate principal scales and a few shorl and loose calyculat s : pappus of 12 to 20 



