SUNFLOWER FAMILY. 425 



11. C. californicum Gray. Tall and paniculately branching, often 4 to 

 C ft. high, very leafy toward the base, the white wool more or less deciduous; 

 leaves narrow, mostly about 6 in. long, from sinuately to deeply pinnatifid, 

 moderately prickly: heads solitary on long peduncles, 1% to 2 in. high, naked; 

 involucres hemispherical, somewhat woolly; bracts with coriaceous base and 

 lanceolate spreading but incurved upper portion, the terminal prickle shorl ; 

 corollas cream-color, white or rarely purple; lobes shorter than the throat; 

 anther-tips deltoid. — (Cnicus californicus Gray.) 



Mt. Diablo range (ace. to Greene) : common in the Sierra Nevada from the 

 Stanislaus to Coulterville and southward. 



12. C. coulteri (Gray) Jepson. Stems freely branching above, 3L> to 

 7 ft. high; herbage white-tomentose or becoming green; radical leaves pinnately 

 parted into lanceolate divisions, 10 to 15 in. long ; lower prickles, 8 in. long, 

 decurrent for about % in.; uppermost leaves lanceolate; heads large, nearly 2 

 in. high, on almost naked peduncles 1 ft. or more long; involucre hemispherical, 

 less woolly than the next or nearly glabrous; bracts of involucre with appressed 

 subcoriaceous base and the long lanceolate prickle-tipped upper portion spread- 

 ing, either straight or incurved, or sometimes the outermost deflexed; inner- 

 most bracts erect; flowers bright crimson; corolla-segments longer than the 

 throat; pappus-bristles barbellate above, the tips scarcely dilated. — (Carduus 

 venustus Greene.) 



Higher hills and mountains of the Coast Eanges from Lldah and the Vaea 

 Mts. to Berkeley, Mt. Diablo and southward to the Santa Cruz Mts. June- 

 July. A strikingly handsome species passing by numerous graduations into 

 C. occidentale. The spreading bracts are frequently developed into grappling- 

 hook-like appendages nearly 1 in. long. 



13. C. occidentale (Nutt.) Jepson. Stout, 1% to 3 ft. high, very white 

 with thick coating of cottony wool; leaves from sinuate-dentate to pinnatifid, 

 not very prickly, glabrate above, canescent beneath; heads subglobose, 1% to 

 1% in. high or nearly naked peduncles; involucral bracts straight and subulate- 

 lanceolate, with short spines, not widely spreading, densely festooned with 

 cobwebby hairs ; flowers red or purple ; corolla-segments longer than the 

 throat; anther-tips narrow and acuminate; pappus rather scanty. — (Carduus 

 occidentalis Nutt.) 



Common on sandy hills near the coast, from San Francisco southward. The 

 bracts, excepting their spiny tips, are quite concealed by the dense wool. 

 Even at a short distance from the sea the characters are, however, less pro- 

 nounced, the involucres being less arachnoid-woolly and the bracts somewhat 

 curved or diverging from the appressed base; proceeding inland to the middle 

 Ranges, one meets typical C. coulteri, with nearly or quite glabrous in- 

 volucres and characteristic bracts. This form is repeated about Mt. Shasta 

 and in the northern Sierra Nevada but the heads and whole plant are almost 

 snow-white woolly, when it is Carduus candidissimus Greene. 



22. SILYBUM Gaertn. 

 Annual or biennial herb with very ample sinuate-pinnatifid prickly clasping 

 leaves, smooth and shining above and very conspicuously blotched with white 

 along the veins. Heads very large, solitary at the ends of the branches. 

 Flowers purple. Corollas with filiform tube conspicuously dilated below the 

 narrowly linear lobes. Bracts of the involucre broad, appressed, bearing an 

 abruptly spreading spine which is broadly lanceolate or ovate and ciliate- 

 priekly toward the base. Pappus-bristles in several series, flattish, minutely 

 barbellate. (Old Greek name applied to thistle-like plants.) 



