OF PLANTS CALLED COMPOSITiE. 301 



plants sufficiently dissimilar in habit and structure to 

 justify a further subdivision ; and, what is remarkable, 

 none of them entirely agreeing with his generic character. 



The first tribe consists of herbaceous plants, natives of 

 Europe and North America, having the male and female 

 flosculi in distinct involucra and on different individuals. 

 To this genus the name Antennaria^ may remain, though 



' Antennakia. 

 Antennarise species. Gartner. Gnaphalii species. Linn. Jmsieu. 



Involuarum imbrioatum, scariosum, coloratum. Receptaculum epaleatum, 

 scrobiculatum. Moscidi dioici. Masculi : aniheris basi bisetis : stigmalibus 

 truncatis : Pappo vel penicillato v. apice inerassato. Feminei filiformes, limbo 

 parvo : staminum rudimentis nuUis : Pappo capillar!. 



Herbse perennes, tomentosce, incana;. Polia plana, adulta stspe super gla- 

 brimcula ; radicalia in plerisque latiora. Inflorescentia corymbosa raro soli- 

 taria. Involucri (urbinaii vel quandoque /lemisphcsrici squama e basi calycina 

 snperne coloratce {alba v. purpurascentes). Corullulse flavce. Antherse semi- 

 exserta. Pappus marium niveies, opacws. 



Obs. Onaphalium margaritaceum, which I have referred to this genus, was 

 first described by Clusius ; from whose account it appears to liave been intro- 

 duced into the English gardens from America towards the end of the sixteenth 

 century. 



It has ever since been very generally cultivated, as an ornamental plant, both 

 in this country and on the continent of Europe; and has a place in several of 

 the European Floras, as well as in those of North America. It is surprising, 

 therefore, that hitherto the male plant only should have been observed, uni- 

 formly, however, considered as hermaphrodite, except by M. Cassini, who in his 

 first memoir on Synanthera (in Journal de Physique, tome Ixxvi, p. 200) sus- 

 pects it to be male, from the imperfect appeaiance of the ovarium. 



That this species of Onaphalium is really dicecious, I learned several years 

 ago from an inspection of a specimen of the female plant in the Herbarium of 

 Sir Joseph Banks, who found it on the banks of the Rymney in Glamorgan- 

 shire, vfhere the plant was first observed by Lhwyd. I have since received 

 several specimens of both sexes from Mr. Bicheno, to whom I had mentioned 

 this fact, and who obligingly undertook to observe the different states of the 

 plant in the same place, wbere it seems to be really indigenous. I have never 

 been able to discover any female florets in the circumference of the capitulum 

 of the male plant ; but in the centre of the female capitulum I have always 

 found two or three imperfect male florets, whose antherae, although cohering 

 and of the usual form, appear to be destitute of pollen. 



The separation of sexes in a still more common plant of this class, namely, 

 Serratula iindoria, has been equally overlooked. 



All the authors who have noticed this species, which is included in almost 

 every European Flora, as well as in more than one recent Monograph of 

 the genus, have considered it as hermaphrodite, while it really belongs to Poly- 

 gamia dicecia, or has its perfect sexual organs on diiferent plants. The herma- 

 phrodite plant, apparently perfect, but which I believe very seldom ripens seed, 

 is well figured by Schkuhr (in Botanisches Handbuch, tab. 234); and the 

 female, whose stigmata are remarkably developed and undulated, while the 



