TOWNSENDIA. SERICEA, 
SILKY TOWNSEND FLOWER. 
NATURAL ORDER, COMPOSITA, 
TOWNSENDIA SERICEA, Hooker.—Stemless, from a simple or much branched caudex, one to 
two inches high; leaves spatulate-linear, silky canescent, acute, one-nerved, twelve to fifteen 
lines long, erect, surrounding and partly concealing the heads (eight lines long), which are 
sessile or on very short peduncles; scales of the involucre subulate-lanceolate, pubescent, 
green in the centre, purplish towards the tip; margins scarious, lacerate-ciliate; rays long; 
narrow, not spreading; pappus of the disk white, about as long as the corolla, pappus of the 
ray of several unequal subulate bristles, much shorter than the achenium and one or two 
long ones (sometimes nine or ten) similar to those of the disk flowers; achenium hairy, 
hairs minutely capitate. (Porter’s Synopsis of the Flora of Colorado, See also Torrey and 
Gray’s Flora of North America.) 
( 
SSHIINCE the railroad progress of the few years past has 
brought the Rocky Mountain country so near to us, and 
many of the most intelligent class of tourists make Colorado their 
summer home, the desire to become acquainted with its natural 
history and especially its botany is very great. Its flora is indeed 
interesting, not merely for its own sake, but also because its 
Alpine vegetation affords us in some degree a knowledge of a 
more northern flora) The present species for instance, an 
inhabitant of the Rocky Mountains, is also an Arctic plant, and 
was indeed first made known to us by the naturalists connected 
with the first voyage to the Arctic seas, of the subsequently 
unfortunate Sir John Franklin; and it is described in Dr. John 
Richardson's account of the plants collected on that expedition, 
published in 1823. Dr. Richardson thought it might be a species 
of Aster, to which it is somewhat related, occupying a position 
between Asterand Zrigeron. Its true distinction from Aster was 
perceived by Sir William J. Hooker, who, in 1829, published the 
: (189) 
