770 coMPosiTAB (composite family) 



gradually diminishing into leaf-like bracts, which exceed the lower short-pedi- 

 celed flowers ; calyx-tube ovoid ; corolla only 3-4 mm. long. — Dry open fields 

 and thickets. — Plant poisonous and a noted quack medicine. 

 *****+ Stem scape-like, mostly simple, hollow; leaves fleshy ; fibrous-rooted 

 perennials, very glabrous, mostly aquatic, with pale blue or whitish flowers. 



12. L. paludbsa Nutt. Nearly smooth ; stem slender, 0.3-1.2 m.iigh ; leaves 

 flat, scattered near the base, Unear-spatulate or oblong-linear, glandular-denticu- 

 late, mostly tapering into a petiole ; lower lip of corolla bearded in the middle ; 

 calyx-tube about half the length of the short lobes, hemispherical in fruit. — 

 In water (but foliage emerging), Del. to Fla. and La. 



13. L. Dortmdnna L. (Water Lobelia.) Very smooth ; scape thickish, 

 1-5 (or in deep water even 9) dm. high, few-flowered j leaves all tufted at the 

 base, linear, terete, hollow, with a partition lengthwise ; lower lip of corolla 

 slightly hairy; calyx-tube about as long as the lobes, in fruit much longer. — 

 Borders of ponds (often immersed), Nfd. to N. J., Pa., and northwestw. (Eu.) 



C0MP6SITAE (Composite Family) 



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

 common receptacle, surrounded by an involucre, with 5 (^rarely 4) stamens in- 

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

 united with the 1-oelled ovary, the limb (called a pappus) crowning its summit 

 in the form of bristles, awns, scales, teeth, etc., 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 (in sterUe flowers usually entire). Pruit seed-like (acftene), dry, 

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

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

 mous, 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. 

 When the head contains two sorts of flowers it is said to be heterogamous ; when 

 only one sort, homogamous. The leaves of the involucre, of whatever form or 

 texture, are termed bracts. 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 said to be naked. The largest family of phaenogamous plants. 

 The genera are divided by the corolla into three series, only tw& of which are 

 represented in our region. The first is much the larger. 



Series I. TUBULIFLORAE 



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

 late only in the marginal or ray-flowers, which when present are either pistillate 

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



Tribe I. VERIfOMiEAE. Heads discoid ; the flowers all alike, perfect and tubular, never yellow. 

 Branches of the style long and slender, terete, thread-shaped, minutely bristly-hairy all over. 

 Leaves alternate or scattered. 



1. Vernonia. Heads several-many-flowered, separate. Involucre of many bracts. Pappus 



double, the inner capillary, the outer of minute chafiy bristles. 



2. filepliantopas. Heads 2-5-flowered, several crowded together into a compound head. In- 



volucre of S bracts. Pappus of several chaffy bristles. 



