COMPOSITE. (composite FAMILY.) 177 



into a long flexible awn -(r.fch a straight point. — Road-sides : rather rare. (Nat, 

 from Eu.) Suspected to be the original of 



D. !Ftill6num, the cultivated Fuller's Teasel, which has a shorter invo- 

 lucre, and stiff chaff to the heads, with hooked points, — used for raising' a nap 

 upon woollen cloth. 



Order 59. COMPOSIT-S:. (Composite Famiet.) 



Flowers in a close head (the compound flower of the older botanists), upon 

 a common receptacle, surrounded by an involucre, idth 5 (rarely 4) stamens 

 inserted on the corolla, their anthers united in a tube (syngenesious). — Calyx- 

 tube united with the 1-celled ovary, the limb (called a pappus) crowning 

 its summit in the form of bristles, awns, scales, teeth, &c., or cup-shaped, or 

 else entirely absent. Corolla either strap-shaped or tubular ; in the latter 

 chiefly 5-lobed, valvate in the bud, the veins bordering the margins of the 

 lobes. Style 2-cleft at the apex. Fruit seed-like (achenium), dry, con- 

 taining a single erect anatropous seed, with no albumen. — An immense 

 family, chiefly herbs in temperate regions, without stipules, with perfect, 

 polygamous, monoecious or dioecious flowers. The flowers with a strap- 

 shaped (ligulate) corolla are called rays or ray-flowers : the head which 

 presents such flowers, either throughout or at the margin, is radiate. The 

 tubular flowers compose the disk ; and a head which has no ray-flowers is 

 said to be discoid. The leaves of the involucre, of whatever form or tex- 

 ture, are termed scales. The bracts or scales, which often grow on the re- 

 ceptacle among the flowers, are called the chaff: when these are wanting, 

 the receptacle is naked. — The largest order of Phsenogamous plants, 

 divided by the corolla into thi-ee suborders, only two of which are repre- 

 sented in the Northern United States. 



SuBOKDKB I. TUBULIFLOE.a;. 



Corolla tubular in all the perfect flowers, regularly 5- (rarely 3 - 4-) 

 lobed, ligulate only in the marginal or ray-flowers, wliich when present are 

 either pistillate only, or neutral (with neither stamens nor pistil) . 



The technical characters of the five tribes of the vast suborder Tubuliflorce, 

 taken from the styles, require a magnifying-glass to make them out, and will 

 not always be clear to the student. The following artificial analysis, founded 

 upon other and more obvious distinctions, will be useful to the beginner. (The 

 numbers are those of the genera.) 



Artificial Key to the Genera of this Suborder. 



§ 1. Rays or ligulate flowers none : corollas all tubular. 



» Flowers of the head all perfect and alike. 



H- Pappus composed of bristles. 



Pappus double ; the outer composeJ of very short, the inner of longer bristles. No. 1. 



Pappus simple ; the bristles all of the same sort. 



