152 COMPOSITE. (COMPOSITE family.) 



firm-chartaceous, and all but innermost with a thickened greenish spot at 

 the very obtuse apex : pappus fine anil soft, rather short. — Proc. Am. Acad, 

 xii. 58. Colorado mountains, in Middle Park and Gunnison Valley ; also in 

 Utah. 



* * * Heads several to many-flowered : bracts of the involucre coriaceous, and 



usually somewhat herbaceous or thickened at the obtuse apex f all strictly op- 

 pressed and imbricated, but the vertical ranks inconspicuous : akenes pubescent : 

 leaves linear, entire or sparingly dentate : herbaceous down to tlie suffrutescent 

 base. 



11. B. pluriflora, Gray. Leaves narrowly linear, entire : heads 15 to IB- 

 flowered, 4 linos high : involucre somewhat turbinate, very smooth ; its thinnish 

 bracts lanceolate, acute: otherwise like the uext, of which it is probably a 

 form. — Colorado'? probably on the Arkansas or South Fork of the Platte, 

 James in Long's expedition. 



12. B. Wrightii, Gray. Commonly glabrous or nearly so : stems rather 

 strict and slender, a foot or two high : leaves thkkish, narrowly liuear, entire, 

 sometimes lower ones sparingly laciniate-tlentate, margins either smooth or spar- 

 ingly scabrous: heads (4 or 5 lines high) 7 to lb-flowered, usually numerous 

 and crowded in a corymbiform cyme : bracts of the involucre oral-oblong to 

 broadly lanceolate, obtuse ; the back at or near the apex usually greenish. — 

 W. Texas to S. Colorado and Arizona. 



Var. hirtella, Gray. Leaves cinereous-hirtellcms or hirsute-pubescent and 

 roughish, but often glabrate in age or only ciliolate : stems sometimes pubes- 

 cent. — Synopt. Fl. i. 142. Same range. 



11. SOLID AGO, L. Golden-hod. 



Herbs, with mostly strict stems, entire or serrate alternate leaves, the cau- 

 linp sessile or nearly so, the radical tapering into margined petioles : the small 

 heads thyrsoid-glomcrate, or sometimes eymose, or more commonly in raceme- 

 like secund clusters : flowers yellow. 



§ 1. Receptacle honeycombed : rays generally fewer or not more numerous than 

 disk-flowers. — Viim; A UREA. 



* Heath mostly large, 4 to G lines low/, many-flowered, collected in thyrsoidal in- 



florescence which is tint at all secund nor raceme-like : rays 6 to 14 : akenes 

 jiubescent : leaves re.iny from a simple midrib, mostly bright green : stems low. 

 Ours are mountain or hiqh-ltititude forms. 

 1 • S. multiradiata, Ait. Vil/otis-pubeseent above or glabrate : leaves 

 minute/ 1/ and sparini/li/ serrate above, sometimes entire; cauline spatulate to 

 lanceolate, all tapering gradually to the base, or the radical into a slender mar- 

 gined petiole : heads generally few and glomerate in a single terminal roundish 

 or oblong compact cluster, occasionally with one or two looser axillary clusters 

 or branches: bracts if the involucre narrow! i/ lanceolate, acute : rays numerous 

 and narrow. — S. Vin/aumi, var. multiradiata, Torr. & Gray. Across the con- 

 tinent in high latitudes and extending southward along the Pocky Mountains 

 to Colorado and New Mexico, where the usual form is 



Var scopulorum, Gray. More glabrous, ."i to 18 inches high, commonly 

 strict: heads when numerous iu a more open or compound cluster, mostly 



