ASTERACEjE. 173 



5. PYRROCOMA, Hook. Bigid perennial herbs, with coriaceous 

 mostly radical leaves from a fusiform caudex. Stems leafy-bracted, 

 bearing racemose or panicled middle sized heads. Bracts of hemispher- 

 ical involucre many, rigid, with herbaceous more or less squarrose tips. 

 Flowers yellow; those of the ray rather numerous, short, pistillate; of 

 the disk tubular, slightly dilated upwards. Style-appendages subulate- 

 linear, pubescent. Achenes more or less flattened and striate, glabrous 

 or pubescent. Pappus of copious reddish or brownish slender but rigid 

 unequal bristles. 



1. P. elata. Stout, erect, 1 — 3 ft. high, glabrous: radical leaves 

 long-petioled, 6 — 8 in. long, lanceolate, entire; cauline 1 — 3 in., sessile, 

 ascending: heads % in. high and as broad, disposed in an interrupted 

 spike or narrow panicle: involucral bracts rigid, imbricated in several 

 series, the green tips acute, spreading: achenes flattened, closely cos- 

 tate, pubescent. — A somewhat rare plant of subsaline soils at Calistoga 

 and near San Jose. July — October. 



6. HETEROTHECA, Cassini. Tall hairy herbs, with alternate 

 leaves, and a terminal corymbose panicle of middle-sized heads. Invol- 

 ucres ovate; their bracts closely imbricated in many series, without 

 spreading tips. Flowers yellow; those of the ray pistillate, of the disk 

 perfect, the later with ovate or lanceolate style-appendages. Achenes 

 compressed, pubescent, those of the ray thin-triquetrous with caducous 

 pappus or none; pappus of disk achenes of an outer series of sparse 

 short bristles, and an inner, more copious series of longer ones. 



1. H. grand iflora, Nutt. Annual or biennial, 3 — 6 ft. high, hirsute, 

 the inflorescence viscid and strong-scented by a coat of short gland- 

 tipped hairs: cauline leaves oval or oblong, coarsely toothed, partly 

 vertical by a twist in the petiole, this at base bearing 2 stipuliform lobes : 

 involucre % in. high : ray achenes without pappus, those of the disk 

 with but faint traces of the outer and shorter bristles. — Frequent along 

 railways in Contra Costa Co.; an immigrant from S. Calif. July— Dec. 



7. CHRYSOPSIS, Elliott. Perennials, leafy-stemmed and of rather 

 low growth. Leaves sessile, entire or nearly so. Heads middle-sized, 

 terminating corymbose or fastigiate branches. Involucres ovate or 

 broader, of narrow regularly imbricated bracts in several series. Style- 

 appendages linear-filiform to slender-subulate. Achenes compressed, 

 obovate to linear-fusiform; pappus fuscous, of many capillary scabrous 

 bristles, with or without an outer series of short bristles or palese. 



* Heads radiate; outer pappus setose-squamellate. 



1. C. sessiliflora, Nutt. Slender, sparsely pilose-hispid, viscid-gland- 

 ular: leaves oblanceolate, sharply pointed: corymbose branches ending 

 in about 3 subsessile heads %, in. high, leafy-bracted- at base: bracts of 



