COMPOSITE. (composite FAMILY.) 281 



and Ed. 2) is tall, with a thick and hollow very leafy stem (4° - 9° high), smooth 

 or nearly so ; leaves long, most of them runcinate-pinnatifid ; heads very numer- 

 ous, in a long and narrow naked panicle ; flowers mostly pale yellow. — Kich 

 and damp soil, borders of fields or thickets : common, especially northward. — 

 The following are perhaps to be restored as species : — 



Var. integrifdlia, Torr. & Gr. {L. integriMia,, Bigel.) Stem 3° -6° high; 

 leaves all undivided, either entire or sharply denticulate ; panicle more open ; 

 flowers pale yellow, cream-color, or purple. — Open and dry or sterile soil, E. 

 New England near the coast to Illinois and southward. 



Var. sanguinea, Torr. & Gr. (L. sanguinea, Bigd.) Lower and less 

 stout (2° -5° high); leaves all runcinate-pinnatifid, the midrib beneath and 

 lower part of the stem often sparsely bristly-hairy ; heads fewer, in a loose open 

 panicle ; flowers yellow-purple, reddish with or without a yellow centre, or rarely 

 white. — Open dry gi-ound, Eastern New England to New Jersey, Illinois, and 

 southward. 



2. L. ScARioLA, L. (Prickly Letttjoe.) Annual or biennial ; stem 

 below sparsely prickly-bristly, as also the midrib on the lower face of the sagit- 

 tate-clasping oblong or lanceolate spinulose-denticulate vertical leaves ; panicle 

 narrow ; heads small, few-flowered ; achenia striate. — Waste grounds and road- 

 sides, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Adv. fi'om Eu.) 



84. MULGEDIITM, Cass. False or Blue Lettuce. 



Heads many-flowered. Involucre, &c. as in Lactuca. Achenia laterally com- 

 pressed, striate or ribbed, the summit contracted into a short and thick (or in 

 No. 1 slender) beak or neck of the same texture, expanded at the apex into a 

 ciliate disk, which bears a copious rather deciduous pappus of soft capillary 

 bristles. — Leafy-stemmed herbs, with the general aspect and foliage of Lactuca ; 

 ours glabrous or nearly so. Heads racemed or panicled; the flowers chiefly 

 blue ; in summer. (Name from mulgeo, to milk.) 



* Pappus bright white ; flowers blue. 



1 . M. pulcll61Ium, Nutt. Perennial, pale or glaucous ; stem simple, 1 ° - 

 2° high ; leaves sessile, oblong- or linear-lanceolate, entire, or the lower runci- 

 nate-pinnatifid ; heads few and large, racemose, erect ; scales of the conical-cylin- 

 draceous involucre lanceolate, imbricated in 3 or 4 ranks ; the peduncles scaly- 

 bracted; achenia tapering into a slender beak, almost as in Lactuca. — Upper 

 Michigan {Prof. Porter, &c.), probably in N. W. Wisconsin : common on the 

 plains westward. 



2. M. acuminitum, DC. Tall fti'enmai (3° -6° high), with many small 

 heads in a loose panicle, on diverging peduncles ; leaves ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 

 pointed, barely toothed, sometimes hairy on the midrib beneath, contracted into a 

 winged petiole, the lowest occasionally sinuate ; achenia with a very short beak. 

 — Borders of thickets. New York to Illinois, and southward. — Probably only 

 an entire-leaved state of the next. 



3. M. Ploridtoum, DC. Leaves all lyrate or runcinafe, the upper often 

 with a heart-shaped clasping base ; panicle larger : otherwise as No. 2. — Rich 

 soil, Pennsylvania to Illinois and southward. 



