Troximon. COMPOSITE. 437 



118. TROXIMON, Nntfc 



Head many-flowered. Involucre campanulatc or cylindraceous ; the scales mostly 

 lanceolate, imbricated in few series, the outer often loose and somewhat foliaceous 

 or bract-like. Receptacle Hat, naked, sometimes foveolate, in one species occasion- 

 ally (and abnormally) with a few chaffy scales among the flowers. Akenes oblong 

 or linear, terete, 10-ribbed; the apex contracted into somewhat of a neck, or pro- 

 longed into a beak ; the broa'd base or a basilar callus to a narrower base more or 

 less hollowed at the insertion. Pappus of copious bright white or whitish capillary 

 merely scabrous bristles, which are either persistent or separately deciduous from 

 the dilated terminal areola. — Acaulescent perennials or annuals ; with clustered 

 radical leaves, and simple scapes, bearing solitary large or middle-sized heath of 

 yellow or rarely orange or purplish flowers. — Benth. & Hook. Gen. PI. ii. 522. 

 Macrorhynchus, Less., DC, &c. Stylopappus, Kymapleura, & Cryptopleura, Xutt. 

 in Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. n. ser. vii. 430-433. 



A genus of several species, natives of Xorth America west of the Mississippi and two or three 

 in South America, being now extended, by Mr. Bentham, to embrace Macrorhynchus. The 

 latter, with aliform beak to the akene, seems abundantly distinct from the eastern beakless 

 '/'. cuspidalwn, which ought to be regarded as the type of the geuus. But T. glaucum, and T. 

 aurantiacum connect them. See Proe. Am. Acad. ix. 215. 



§ 1. Akenes fusiform, glabrous, tapering gradually into a short or rather stout nerved 

 beak: pappus persistent and rather rigid: root perennial. — Xothotroximox. 



1. T. glaucum, X ut t. "When young hirsute-pubescent, or nearly glabrous: 

 leaves varying from linear to lanceolate or oblanceolate and with entire or undulate 

 margins, rarely laciniate-pinnatifid : scapes a span to a foot high : scales of the invo- 

 lucre all or all but the outermost and shorter ones acuminate : mature akene taper- 

 ing into a stoat beak of not more than half the length of its body. — Bot. Mag. 

 t.. 3402. Macrorhynchus glaucus, Eaton in Bot. King Exp. 20-1. 



Var. taraxacifolium, Gray. Large: leaves 7 to 10 inches lung and some- 

 times an inch and a half wide, from lanceolate to obovate-oblong, entire, toothed, or 

 sometimes pinnatifid : scape a foot or two high : involucre an inch high ; its scales 

 all acute or acuminate. — T. taraxacifolium, Xutt. in Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. 1. c. 



Var. laciniatum, Gray. A dwarf or small form, with scapes 2 to 6 inches 

 high : leaves laciniately and runcinately pinnatifid, or occasionally entire and linear. 

 — .Uttrrnrliynrhii.i <//, turns, var. laciniatus, Eaton, 1. c. Troximon parviflorum, 

 Xutt. 1. c., is an eii! ire leaved form. 



Eastern herders of the Sierra Nevada, from Carson City to Sierra Valley, in the above two vari- 

 eties (the var. la iniaium on Mount Dana 1 t arson pass, a1 8,000 to 11, feet, Bri ux r, and 



Summit, Bolander) ; north to Oregon, and east to beyond the Rocky Mountains, mostly in low 

 grounds. Corollas yellow, sometimes turning purple in age. The var. dasycephalum, with hairy 

 and larger somewhat foliaceous outer scales to the involucre, occasionally has chaffy a ales on the 

 receptacle. 



2. T. aurantiacum, Book, More slender, a span to a foot or more high, more 

 glabrous: leaves thinner, incline. 1 to oblanceolate or spatulato, often denticulate, 



si nine, laciniate pinnatifid : involucre (ii t" 9 lines high) mostly of two series of 



less acute scales, the cuter about as long as the inner and broader : mature akom - 

 tapering into a slender beak of nearly or fully the length of the body. — Hook. El. 

 i. 300, i. 104, '/'. pumilum, Xutt. I. c, a small form. Macrorhync/ius troximoides, 

 Torr. & Gray, El. ii. 191. 



Meadows or low grounds ; same range as the last, and forms of the two often confounded. The 



only Calil inn specimens seen an from "Bear Valley Meadows, at 1,000 feet" (Roland -and 



■ I with pinnatifid leaves, bul no fruit Ripe akenes distinguish the species fir the 



preceding: the pappus also is less persistent. Tie ten turning to purple. 



