COMPOSITE. (COMPOSITE FAMILY.) • 215 



12. C. Virginianus, Pursh. Stem slender, 2 or 3 feet high, simple or 

 branching: leaves narrow, varying as in the last: heads more naked-peduncu 

 late, only an inch long: involucral bracts small and narrow, thinner, tapering 

 into a very weak short spreading bristle-like prickle, sometimes hardly any : flowers 

 rose-purple. — From Colorado to Texas and Virginia. 



72. KEIGIA, Schreb. 



Low herbs; with rather large heads of yellow flowers terminating slender 

 naked peduncles or scapes. Ours belongs to the § Cynthia, in which the 

 involucral bracts are 9 to 18 and thin, and pappus of 10 to 15 oblong scales 

 and 15 or 20 slender capillary bristles. 



1. K. amplexieaulis, Nutt. Caulescent, not tuberiferous, glaucous: 

 stem a foot or two high, 1 to 3-leaved, bearing one or two or few somewhat 

 umbellate heads on moderately long peduncles : leaves oblong or oval, obtuse, 

 entire, repand and denticulate, or radical somewhat lyrately lobed;. these 

 contracted into winged petioles; cauline partly clasping by a broad base.— 

 Cynthia Virginica, Don. From Colorado to New York and Georgia. 



73. STBPHANOMEEIA, Nutt. 



Mostly smooth and glabrous ; with branching or rarely virgate and often 

 rigid or rush-like stems, small or merely scale-like leaves on the flowering 

 branches, and usually paniculate heads of rose-colored or flesh-colored flowers. 

 In ours the heads are \ to J inch high, mostly 5-flowered and with about the 

 same number of involucral bracts. 



* Perennials, paniculately branched from thick and tortuous roots, with striate and 



rush-like branches, small-leaved or nearly leafless above : pappus bristles not at 

 all dilated at base, but plumose below the middle. 



1. S. runcinata, Nutt. Comparatively stout and rigid, a foot or two high, 

 with spreading branches : heads mostly 4 or 5 lines high and scattered along 

 the branches : lower leaves runcinate-pinnatifid, commonly lanceolate ; upper 

 linear or reduced to scales : pappus dull white, plumose only to near the base. 

 — Plains, from Nebraska and Wyoming to Texas, Arizona, and California. 



2. S. minor, Nutt. More slender and with ascending branches bearing usu- 

 ally terminal and smaller heads: cauline leaves all slender, often filiform : pappus 

 white, very plumose down to base. — Plains and mountains, from the borders 

 of British America to those of Mexico. 



* # Annuals or biennials : bristles of the white or whitish pappus plumose above 



but naked below the middle, at base more or less dilated. 



3. S. exigua, Nutt. A foot or two high, with slender branches and 

 branchlets : radical and lower cauline leaves pinnatifid or bipinnatifid, those 

 of the branches mainly reduced to short scales : bristles of the pappus 9 to 

 18, their more or less dilated or chaffy bases commonly a little connate. — 

 From Wyoming to Texas and westward to Nevada and E. California. 



