88 COMPOSITE. Stokesia. 



Tribe I. VERNONIACE^E, p. 50. 



1. STOKESIA, L'Her. (Jonathan Stokes, a British botanist, coadjutor of 

 Withering: some say Dr. Wm. Stokes of Dublin.) — A most peculiar genus, of a 

 single species, of local habitat; a perennial, flowering in early summer; the 

 large and showy head of flowers having considerable resemblance to that of a 

 China Aster. — Benth. & Hook. Gen. ii. 234. 



S. oyanea, L'Her. A foot high : stem stout, at first floccose-lanate ; the few branches 

 terminated by solitary heads : leaves glabrous, bright green, puncticulate, thickish ; radical 

 and lower cauline entire, oblong-lanceolate, tapering into a margined petiole; upper be- 

 coming ovate lanceolate, partly clasping, and bearing toward their base some spinulose- 

 aristiform teeth ; some subtending the head and passing into the bracts of the involucre : 

 head, with the radiant marginal corollas (of an inch long), 3 inches in diameter : flowers 

 bright purplish-blue. — L'Her. Sert. Angl. 27; Ait. Kew. ed. 2, iv. 491; Torr. & Gray, Fl. 

 ii. 60; Hook. Bot. Mag. t. 4966; Meehan, Nat. Flowers, ii. t. 13. Carthamus latvis, Hill, 

 Hort. Kew. 57, t. 5. Oartesia centauroides, Cass. Bull. Philom. 1816. Centaurea Americana, 

 Hook. Comp. Bot. Mag. i. 48, by mistake. — Moist ground, in the low country, from south- 

 western part of S. Carolina to E. Louisiana : rare. 



2. ELEPHANTOPUS, Vaill., L. (Greek for Elephant's foot, which is 

 a translation of a Malabarian name of the original species.) — Perennial herbs, of 

 warm regions, extending northward almost through the Atlantic U. S. ; with un- 

 divided pinnately-veined leaves and usually bluish-purple flowers. — Benth. & Hook. 

 Gen. ii. 237. Elephantopus, Elephantosis, & Distreptus (Cass.), Less., DC. — 

 Our species all belong to the typical section of the genus ; with stem dichoto- 

 mously branching ; heads capitately glomerate at the summit of pedunculiform 

 branches, the compound glomerule involucrate by two or three cordate and 

 closely sessile bracteiform leaves ; and simple pappus of about o awns or rigid 

 bristles, with chaffy-dilated base : fl. late summer. Of the nearly related species 

 (with glabrous corolla) E. seaber belongs to the extra- American and E. mollis to 

 the American tropics. Schultz Bip., in Linnsea, xx. 514, too hastily combined all 

 the American species. , 



# Stem leafy: upper cauline leaves very similar to the basal. 

 B. Carolinianus, Willd. Bather softly hirsute or pubescent, sometimes 3 feet high : 

 leaves thin, oval-obovate or ovate, crenate or repand-dentate, not rugose, nor prominently 

 veined (the larger 4 to 8 inches long and 2 to 4 wide) ; uppermost oblong: chaffy base of 

 awns of the pappus decidedly longer than the diameter of the akene, lanceolate-subulate and 

 very gradually attenuate into the awn. — Spec. iii. 2390 (excl. syn.) ; Nutt. Gen. ii. 187 ; 

 Ell. Sk. ii. 480; Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 60. E. seaber, "Walt. Car. 217, &c , not L. — Dry soil 

 in open woods, Pennsylvania to Illinois, Kansas, Texas, and Florida. 



# # Stem usually naked and seapiform: its few lea-ves small and bract-like; principal leaves 

 radical and flat on the ground. 



B. tomentosus, L. Somewhat canescently hirsute and villous ; leaves silky-villous beneath 

 (rather than tomentose), varying from obovate or rarely oval to Uarrowly-spatulate ; veins of 

 the lower surface prominent : seapiform stem a foot or two high : involucre of the large 

 glomerules rigid : pappus-scales about the length of the breadth of the akene, triangular- 

 subulate, attenuate into the bristle. — Spec. ii. 814, & ed. 2, excl. syn. Browne ; Torr. & Gray, 

 • Fl. I.e. E. Carolinianus, var. simplex, Nutt. Gen. ii. 187. E. nudicaulis, Ell. Sk. ii. 481. 

 E. elatus, Bertol. Misc. xi. 21, t. 5. — Virginia and Kentucky to Florida and Louisiana. 



B. nudatUS, Ghat. Minutely strigose-pubescent : leaves membranaceous, green, at most 

 somewhat hirsute beneath, from spatulate-obovate to oblanceolate, not prominently veined : 

 glomerules smaller : pappus-scales very short, broadly deltoid, abruptly terminated by the 



