AND GENERA OF PLANTS. 349 



BALSAMORHIZA. {Hooker, under Heliopsis.) 



Capitulum many-flowered, heterogamous; rays feminine, ligulate, in one series, 

 with infertile filaments of stamens; discal florets hermaphrodite, tubular, the 

 summit five-cleft, reflected. Involucrum imbricate in two or three series, 

 foliaceous, longer than the disk. Receptacle convex, the palea lanceolate, 

 foliaceous, pungently acute, subcarinate, and embracing the fruit. Ache- 

 nium subquadrangular, in the ray compressed, smooth, wholly naked, with 

 a small epigynous disk. Stigmas filiform, hirsute, subobtuse. — Low, robust, 

 perennial herbs of the western alpine steppes, and plains of Oregon and Cali- 

 fornia. Leaves entire, or pinnately dissected, nearly all radical. Stems 

 scapoid, one or few-flowered, the lower pair of small leaves opposite; above 

 alternate; capituli wholly yellow, resembling that of Helianthus. Nearly 

 allied to Heliopsis, but without proper stems, and wholly dissimilar in habit. 

 Root fusiform, stout, black, and very long, terebinthine, internally darkish. 

 Used by the aborigines of the west as an article of diet, after subterraneous 

 stoving, when it acquires a sweet flavor, like that of the parsnip. 



§ I. EuBALSAMORHizA. — LcGves pimiatifid, scapes or stems one-Jlorvered; rays 



ten to fourteen. 



Balsamorhiza Hookerii; softly and almost sericeously pubescent; leaves more 

 or less bipinnatifid and incise, segments linear; involucrum subtriserial ; sepals 

 narrow-lanceolate, acuminate, loosely imbricate, external ones spreading. He- 

 liopsis balsamorhiza; Hooker, Flor. Bor. Am., p. 310, 



Hab. Plains of the Oregon, common. Twelve to eighteen inches high. Summit of the cylin- 

 dric, naked tap-root surrounded by long, brown, membranous bud sheathes. The root, when cut, 

 exuding drops of a very limpid resin. 



Balsamorhiza terehinthacea. Heliopsis terebinthacea; Hook. Flor. Bor. Am., 

 p. 310. With this, if more than a variety of the preceding, I am unacquainted. 

 The leaves of the preceding vary sufiiciently. 



Balsamorhiza * hirsuta; somewhat hirsute, not canescent ; leaves all bipinna- 

 tifid, except at the summit; segments oblong, incise, margin very scabrous; 



VII. — 4 N 



