562 compositjE. 



panicled heads of yellow, purplish, lilac or white flowers. Heads 

 rather small, campanulate to turbinate, usually narrow, 5 to 25- 

 flowered. Bracts of the involucre imbricated in several appressed 

 ranks. Eeceptacle flat. Flowers perfect. Corollas with linear 

 lobes, or those of the marginal rows enlarged, more deeply cleft 

 on the inside, and simulating a palmately lobed ligule. Aohenes 

 all fertile, turbinate or cuneate, more or less flattened, silky-villous. 

 Pappus commonly of numerous unequal scabrous bristles, usuallj' 

 turning reddish brown. (Named for the Lessings, German family 

 of scientists and authors.) 



A, Flowers yellow; marginal corollas conspicuously larger; achenes 

 flattened, 2 to 3-nerved. 



Leaves of the branehlets scattered, not gland-bearing ; seaboard species . . 



1. L, Germanorum. 



Leaves of the branehlets small and crowded, the margin gland-bearing; 



mainly interior species, as all the following . . 2. L. glanduUJera. 



B. Flowers purplisli, lilac or wiiite; corollas all alike or nearly so; achenes 

 less flattened, 4 to 5-nerved. 



Erect slender freely branching plants. 

 Pappus of slender bristles. 

 Wool deciduous in age. 

 Corollas short. 

 Heads terminating slender branehlets . . .3.L. ramulosa. 



Heads more or less spicately sessile . . . 4. i. virgata. 



Corollas conspicuously exserted . . . . 5. i. leptoclada. 



Wool more persistent in age 6. L. hololeuca. 



Pappus of paleaceous bristles, some commonly more or less united; upper 



leaves cillate-glandular 7. L. ademophora. 



Depressed dwarfish plants; inner bracts of involucre pearly white and 

 conspicuously awn-pointed .... . . 8. i. nana. 



1. L. Germanorum Cham. Low, diffusely branched, 4 to 8 in. 

 high; herbage with appressed white tomentum, wholly glabrate in 

 age, at least on the branches; lowest leaves pinnatifid, those of the 

 branehlets scattered, oblanceolate or linear and mostly entire; heads 

 21 to 25-flowered; involucre hemispherical, its bracts not glandular, 

 with greenish tips or the outer wholly greenish; pappus-bristles about 

 35, 1 to IJ times as long as the achene. 



Sandy hills along the coast: San Francisco, etc. Sept.-Oct. 



2. L. glandulifera Gray. Stem erect, stoutish, paniculately very 

 much branched, IJ to 3 ft. high; leaves ovate or oblanceolate, toothed 

 or cleft, persistently woolly, those of the branehlets numerous and 

 even crowded, green, minute, with the margin bearing yellowish 

 glands; involucre campanulate, its bracts more or less gland-bearing; 

 heads 18 to 38-flowered; pappus-bristles of disk-flowers as long as 

 corolla, about 35; pappus-bristles of ray shorter than corolla. 



Plains of the lower San Joaquin Valley (Lathrop) to Southern 

 California. Aug. -Sept. 



3. L. ramulosa Gray. Stems slender, 1 to IJ- ft. high, loosely 

 branching, granulose-glandular above or with minute tack-shaped 

 glands; lowest leaves spatulate or oblong, denticulate or entire; upper 

 lanceolate, mostly entire, those of the branehlets with partly clasp- 



