COMPOSITE FAMILY. 253 



57. SENECIO, GROUNDSEL. (Latin : senex, an old man, referring 

 to the hoary hairs of many species, or to the white hairs of the pappus.) 



^' '' * No ray flowers; plant not climbing. 



S. vulgaris, Linn. Common Groundsel. A low weed in waste or 

 cultivated grounds E. ; corymbose, nearly smooth, with pinnatifld and 

 toothed leaves ; flowers yellow. Eu. ® 



* * Heads with no rays and only 6-12 disk flowers, small, yellow; stem 



extensively climbing, more or less twining. 



S. scdndens, DC. Cult, as house plant under the name of German 

 Ivy, hut it is from Cape of Good Hope, and resembles Ivy only in the 

 leaves, which are round heart-shaped or angled and with 3-7 pointed lobes, 

 soft and tender in texture, and very smooth ; the flowers seldom pro- 

 duced. % 



* * * With ray flowers, native herbs; flowers spring and early summer. 



S. lobatus, Pers. Butterweed. Very smooth, l°-3° high, with 

 tender lyrate-pinnatifld or pinnate and variously lobed leaves ; small 

 heads in naked corymbs, and about 12 conspicuous rays. N. Car., W. 

 and S. 



S. aureus, Linn. Golden Ragwort, Squawweed. Cottony when 

 young, becoming smooth with age, sometimes quite smooth when young, 

 with simple stems l°-3° high ; root leaves simple and in different varie- 

 ties either round, obovate, heart-shaped, oblong, or spatulate, crenate or 

 cut-toothed on slender petioles, lower stem leaves lyrate, upper ones ses- 

 sile or clasping and cut-pinnatifid ; corymb umbel-like ; rays 8-12. Com- 

 mon in low grounds, and very variable, y. 



* # * * Beads with rays and numerous dish flowers; cult, for ornament. 



*- Flowers all yellow. % 



S. Cineraria, DC. (or CinerAria MAHfiiMA), of Mediterranean coast, 

 an old-fashioned house plant, ash-white all over (whence the name Cine- 

 raria and the popular one of Dusty Miller) , with a woolly coating ; 

 the branching stems somewhat woody at base ; leaves pinnately parted 

 and the divisions mostly sinuate-lobed ; the small heads in a dense 

 corymb. 



S. Kcempferi, DC. (or Earftjgium grande). Cult, in greenhouses, 

 where it hardly ever flowers ; it is grown for the foliage, the thick and 

 smooth rounded and angled rather kidney-shaped root leaves blotched 

 with white ; some of the flowers more or less 2-lipped. China and 

 Japan. 



■*- ■*- May flowers purple, violet, blue, or varying' to white, those of the 

 disk of similar colors or sometimes yellow. 



S. cruentus, DC. Common Cineraria of the greenhouses, from Tene- 

 riffe ; herbaceous, smoothish, with the heart-shaped and angled more or 

 less cut-toothed leaves green above and usually crimson or purple on the 

 veins underneath, the lower with wing-margined petioles dilated into 

 clasping auricles at the base ; heads numerous in a flat corymb, the hand- 

 some flowers purple, crimson, blue, white, or party-colored, "il 



S. elegans, Linn. Purple Ragwort. Smooth herb, with deeply pin- 

 natifld leaves, the lower petioled, the upper with half-clasping base ; the 

 lobes oblong and often sinuate-toothed ; heads corymbed, with yellow or 

 purple disk flowers and purple or rarely white rays. And a full- 

 double variety, having the disk flowers turned into rays. 2/ Cape of 

 Good Hope. 



