210 COMPOSITE. Erigeron. 



involucre soft and spreading. — Proc. Acad. Philad. 1863, 64, & Proc. Am. Acad. I.e. — 

 Colorado Rocky Mountains, at 8,000 to 9,000 feet ; first coll. by Parry, Hall, &c. Perhaps 

 a distinct species. 



+- •(— Low, rarely a foot high, conspicuously hispid or hirsute with spreading bristly hairs : leaves 

 entire, narrow : involucre close : rays numerous, occasionally wanting in one species : pappus 

 conspicuously double, but least so in the first species. 



++ Sparingly branched stems several or numerous from the crown of a tap root, more or less leafy: 

 heads middle-sized: disk a third to half an inch in diameter: involucre hispid: rays 50 to 80, 

 long and narrow, soon deflexed, occasionally wanting in the second species. 



B. pumilus, Nutt. Radical and lower cauline leaves from spatulate-linear to lanceolate (a 

 line or two wide) ; upper linear : rays white (4 lines long) : outer pappus of short bristles 

 little or not at all thicker than the inner ones and more or less intermixed with them. — 

 Gen. ii. 147; Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 174. E. hirsutus, Pursh, El. ii. 742, not Lour. — Dry 

 upper plains, Dakota to Colorado, and in the Rocky Mountains, west to Utah. 



B. concinnus, Torr. & Gray. Like the preceding, but usually with more dense and 

 shaggy hirsuteness and less rigid leaves : stems not rarely somewhat copiously branched : 

 rays violet or blue, rarely white : outer pappus conspicuous and squamellate or paleaceous 

 (the pale£e varying from subulate to oblong!). — Fl. ii. 174; Eaton, Bot. King Exp. 151, 

 ■with var. condensatus, a dwarf and condensed form with monocephalous stems, and com- 

 monly wide (but fewer) paleaj to the pappus. E. strigosus, var. hispidissimus, Hook. El. ii. 

 18, chiefly. Distasis ? concinna, Hook. & Arn. Bot. Beech. 350. — Arid regions between the 

 western slopes of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada and Cascades, from Wyoming 

 to New Mexico and Brit. Columbia to Arizona. 



Var. aphanactis, Gray. Discoid, the rays being nearly destitute of ligule or want- 

 ing. — Proc. Am. Acad. vi. 540. — Colorado to Nevada and the borders of California. 



•H- ++ More branched and leafy, over a span high ; with smaller heads, fewer rays, and somewhat 

 naked involucre more imbricated: anomalous Texano-New-Mexican species. 



E. Bigelovii, Gray. Cinereous-hispidulous, diffusely branched from the base, leafy up to 

 the short-pedunculate scattered heads : leaves small, spatulate-lanceolate or upper linear 

 (less than inch long), lowest more spatulate and petioled : bracts of the hemispherical involu- 

 cre rather rigid, lanceolate, acuminate, obviously of 2 or 3 lengths, the outer sparingly his- 

 pidulous: rays 40 to 50, purple or violet (3 lines long) : outer pappus of slender-subulate 



squamellse, about a third the length of the inner bristles. — Bot. Mex. Bound. 78. On the 



Rio Grande near Fronteras, at the borders of Texas, New Mexico, and Chihuahua, Wright, 

 Bigelow. 



E. Brandegei. A very anomalous and imperfectly known plant, green, sparsely hispidu- 

 loas-hirsute, less branched: radical leaves spatulate-linear; cauline linear and small or 

 upper minute : bracts of involucre short-linear, almost naked : rays 30 or more, white : outer 

 pappus of coriaceous squamella? which are commonly confluent with the scanty bristles of 

 the inner, perhaps abnormal: only one specimen seen. — Adobe plains, S. W. Colorado, on 

 the borders of New Mexico, Brandegee. 



++++++ Tufted stems very short and densely leafy, bearing simple and monocephalous scapi- 

 form or few-leaved flowering stems (about a span high) : head proportionally large : rays 25 to 

 50, not very narrow, 3 or 4 lines long: leaves narrowly spatulate-linear. 



B. poliospermus. Leaves hispid throughout, an inch or more long, filiform-spatulate, 

 the broader summit a quarter or half a line wide : head half-inch high : involucre of rather 

 loose and slender hispidulous bracts, rays about 25, blue-violet or white: akenes densely 

 white-villous . outer pappus slender-squamellate, fully as long as the breadth of the akene, 

 covered by the copious white silky hairs of the latter. — Umatilla, Oregon, Howell, and 

 Washington Terr., in the Wallawalla region, Brandegee, Tweedy. Resembles the next. 



B. Chrysopsidis. Hispid, also with some minuter pubescence : leaves spatulate-linear, an 

 inch or two long, commonly a full line wide at summit : involucre rather hirsute : rays 40 to 

 50, " golden yellow " : akenes barely pubescent or hirsutulous : outer pappus less conspicuous, 

 merely setulose; otherwise very like the preceding.— Chrysopsis hirtella, DC. Prodr. v. 327. 

 E. ochroleucus, var. hirtellus, Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. xvi. 90. — Stonv hills and in wet clay 

 on mountain sides, E. Oregon and adjacent Washington Terr., Douglas, Cusick, Nevius, 

 Howell, Must be retained in Erigeron (of which it has the involucre and style), notwith- 



