60 COMPOSIT.E. 



short tube. Hermaphrodite-sterile, with usually a stipitiform abortire ovary, tubular-funnel- 

 form 5-toothed corolla, its short proper tube thickened, and a truncate-bicapitellate style. 

 Akene of the fertile flowers obovate, turgid, free, thinnish, nearly nerveless, the upper part 

 villous with long soft hairs, wholly destitute of pappus ; the epigynous areola small and 

 slightly depressed. Flowers yellow. 



156 BLENNOSPERMA. Heads many-flowered. Involucre simple, broad. Akenes 

 pyriform. Perhaps belongs here rather than to the Hdenioidem, where it has no near rela- 

 tives; perhaps it should stand next to Crocidium, no. 186. 



Subtribe II. MELAMPODIE^. Ray-flowers ligulate (sometimes obscurely so) and 

 fertile, the ligule mostly ileciduous; disk-flowers hermaphrodite-sterile. Akenes usually 

 with coriaceous or thicker pericarp, the style mostly entire. Receptacle paleaceous 

 throughout, Parthenice excepted. (Artificial group.) 



# Involucre of the several-flowered heads cylindrical or fusiform, of membranaceous or thin- 

 nish and striate-nerved oblong bracts, not enclosing or emlu-acing the few narrow a,nd 

 somewhat obcompressed akenes; those of the small and flat receptacle scarious. (Allied 

 to the CoreopsidecE.) 



65. DICRANOCARPUS. Involucre of 3 or 4 narrow bracts (and rarely 1 or 2 short and 

 subtending herbaceous ones), at length loose, deciduous in age. Ray-flowers 3 or 4 ; the 

 ligule very small, shorter than the style, 2-3-lobed, and with hardly any tube. Disk-flowers 

 3 or 4 : corolla with rotately-spreading limb parted into 5 ovate lobes, rather longer than 

 the narrow tube : style tipped with an entire conical appendage : o^ary inane. Akenes di- 

 morphous, one or two elongated to fully twice or thrice the length of the involucre, from 

 subulate to oblong-linear, nearly smooth, puberulent, long persistent on the receptacle, 

 tipped with two diverging or divaricate and stout persistent naked rigid awns or horns ; the 

 others shorter, comparatively thicker, often tuberculate-rugose, the truncate apex bearing a 

 pair of very short divaricate horns or hardly any. 



66. GrUARDIOLA. Involucre of 3 concave and herbaceo-membranaceous bracts com- 

 pletely enclosing 3 or 4 narrower white-scarious ones ; and there are narrower similar paleoe 

 subtending the sterile flowers. Tube of the corolla both of ray and disk long and filiform; 

 in the 1 to 5 fertile flowers equalling the oblong Hgule ; in the 5 to 20 sterile flowers com- 

 monly several times longer than the abruptly dilated deeply 5-cleft limb (its lobes linear). 

 Filaments very villous ! Style of the disk-flowers mostly 2-cleft at apex, its branches linear 

 or subulate, hispid to the base : ovary inane. Akenes oblong, slightly obcompressed, smooth, 

 the rounded apex wholly destitute of pappus ; the base suberose-fleshy, sometimes as a, boss 

 upon one side. 



* * Involucre of the many-flowered heads broad; the inner bracts concave, embracing 

 and half enclosing the thick and turgid obovoid akenes : pappus none. 



67. POLYMNIA. Heads hemispherical or broader. Involucre of about 5 loose exterior 

 bracts, and as many or more numerous smaller and thinner interior ones, subtending as 

 many fertile flowers : sterile flowers suliteuded by mostly scarious chaffy bracts i>f the flat 

 receptacle. Ray-flowers with a short hairy tub^3 bearing eitlier a short or a long ligule, or 

 none at all. Corolla of the disk-flowers thin, ampliate abo\e, and M'ith ovate lobes. Sterile 

 style commonly 2-cleft or 2-pointed at the hairy apex. jVkenes very thick, short, smooth, 

 marginless. 



* * * Involucre double, strongly dimorphous; exterior of 4 or 5 herbaceous or folia- 

 ceous plane bracts; interior of a single series of small bracts, which completely and 

 permanently enclose the obovate or oldong more or less coniprosscil smooth and glabrous 

 akenes with a pericarp-like accessory covering, at length deciduous together: ]iapi)us none. 



68. MELAMPODIUM. Fructiferous and transformed involucral bracts commonly in- 

 durated, naked or unarmed. Receptacle convex or conical. Akenes more or less obovate 

 and incurved. 



69. ACANTHOSPERMUM. Fructiferous involucral bracts armed with hooked prickles 

 or spines, forming a kind of bur. Otherwise as ^frl(nllpmlilllll. Ligules minute, concave or 

 cucullate. 



# * * * Involucre brnad, of plane or barely concave bracts; innermost subtending ob- 

 compressed (mostly much flattened) ukcncs, but not enclosing nor embracing tlicm. 



